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Epochs of American Histor y 

EDITED BY 

ALBERT BUSHNELL HART. 



DIVISION AND REUNION 
1829 -1909 



WOODROW WILSON. 



EPOCHS OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 

EDITED BY 

ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, A.B., PH.D., 

Pkofessor of History in Harvard University. 



IVziA full Marginal Analyses^ Working Bibliographies, 
Maps and Indices, ismo. Cloth. 



1. THE COLONIES, 1492-1750. 

By Reuben Gold Thwaites, Secretary of the 
State Historical Society of Wisconsin; author of 
" Historic Waterways " etc., etc. 

2. FORMATION OF THE UNION, 1750-1829. 

By Albert Bushnell Hart, A.B., Ph.D., the 
editor of the series, author of ^^Introduction to the 
Study of Federal Governments^ etc., etc. 

3. DIVISION AND REUNION, 1829-1909. 

By WooDROW Wilson, Ph.D., LL.D., President 
of Princeton University, author of " Congressional 
Government'^ " The State : Elements of Historical 
ajid Practical Politics y"* etc., etc. 

EPOCH MAPS ILLUSTRATING AMERICAN HIS- 
TORY. 

By Albert Bushnell Hart, A.B., Ph.D. Fif- 
teen Colored Maps. Oblong. Fourth Revised Edi- 
tion. Cloth. $o.6o. 



viri 




I Free by combined State and National 
action. 

<iPrX')rr® «7>>^re\r^ indicates National 
UlWJ® T 4 IT £ Emancipation. 

TUIC TVDC '''^''^^^^^^^^^''^^'^^''^^ot 
iniO Ifrbof Slavery by National 
action. 

/^ Free by Mexican Law. Not included in 
0~i' Compromise of 1850. Opened to Slavery 
by Dred Scott decision, 1857. Free, Terri- 
torial Act, 1862. 

\ Free by Compromise of 1820. Transferred 
'ZJ to Utah by Compromise of 1850. Con- 
firmed by Dred Scott decision, 1857. Free by 
Act of 1862. 

(fi Free by Mezioan Law. Tiot itcluded in 
^ Compromise of 1850. Added to Kansas, 1854. 



[^ Free by Compromise of is| 
'— ' Missouri, 1836. Free by Stal| 
fg Free by Compromise of IS 
'S Slavery by K.ansas-Nebra.ski 
Confirmed bv Dred Scott decisic 
by Act of 1862. 

fp Free by 13th Amendment, 1 

fS Free by District of Cc 

^ 1862. 

M Excepted from Emancipation P:' 
"^ lafiS. Fwe bj State action, 186 



Epochs of American History 

Division and Reunion 

1829-1909 



BY 



WOODROW WILSON, Ph.D., LL.D. 

PRESIDENT OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 

AUTHOR OF "CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENT," " THE STATE! ELEMENTS 

OF HISTORICAL AND PRACTICAL POLITICS," ETC. 



WITH SIX MAPS 



LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

FOURTH AVENUE &^ 30TH STREET, NEW YORK 

LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 

I912 



J^onograph 



EPOCH MAP VI r I 




^ / 6 



2- 



Copyrigkt, 189S, 1898, 
By Longmans, Green, and Co. 



Copyright, 1909, 1910, 
By Longmans, Green, and Co. 



' ^/^-tr]^ 






First Edition, March, 1893. 
Reprinted, May, 1893; February, April (Revised) and August, 1894; 
July, 1895; April, 1896; January and October, 18975 April, 
1898; and July, 1898 (Revised); January, 1899; April, 
1900; March, 1901 ; March, 1902; November, 
1902; September, 1904; August, 1905; May, 
1906; September, 1906; June, 1907 j 
January, 1908; May, 1908 ; Jan- 
uary, 1 909 ; Revised and en- 
larged, August, 1909 ; 
October, 1 9 10; 
March5|i9i2 



John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, Mass. 



PREFACE TO NEW EDITION. 



I HAVE not had the pleasure of preparing this new 
edition. It has been prepared, at my request, by my 
colleague, Professor Edward S. Corwin. I am sure 
that the narrative he adds, of the years following 1889, 
will prove a very valuable addition to the book. 

The continued serviceability of the little volume, in 
the judgment of teachers, is a source of very sincere 
gratification to me ; and I am glad to have its value 
enhanced by matter from another hand. 

WOODROW WILSON. 

Princeton, N. J., August 21, 1909. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



In this volume, as in the other volumes of the series 
to which it belongs, only a sketch in broad outline has 
been attempted. It is not so much a compact nar- 
rative as a rapid synopsis — as rapid as possible — of 
the larger features of public affairs in the crowded 
space of sixty years that stretches from the election of 
Andrew Jackson to the end of the first century of the 
Constitution. The treatment of the first twelve years 
of that period I have deliberately expanded somewhat 
beyond the scale of the rest, because those years seem 
to me a most significant season of beginnings and of 
critical change. To discuss the events which they 
contain with some degree of adequacy is to simplify 
and speed all the rest of the story. 

I have endeavored, in dividing the matter into 
five parts, to block out real periods in the progress of 
affairs. First there is a troubled period of critical 
change, during which Jackson and his lieutenants in- 
troduce the "spoils system" of appointment to office, 
destroy the great Bank of the United States, and cre- 
ate a new fiscal policy ; during which the tariff ques- 
tion discloses an ominous sectional divergence, and 



viii Authors Preface, 

increases the number of unstable compromises between 
North and South; when a new democratic spirit of 
unmistakable national purpose and power comes on 
the stage, at the same moment with the spirit of nulli- 
fication and local separateness of feeling. Then the 
slavery question emerges into sinister prominence; 
there is a struggle for new slave territory; Texas is 
added to the Union, and the Mexican war is fought 
to make Texas bigger ; that war results in the acqui- 
sition of a vast territory besides Texas, and the old 
question of slavery in the Territories is re-opened, 
leading to the sharp crisis and questionable compro- 
mise of 1850, and finally to the fatal repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise. Then there is secession and 
civil war, which for a time disturb every foundation 
of the government. Reconstruction and a new Union 
follow, and the government is rehabilitated. These 
seem to me the natural divisions of the subject. 

That the period covered by this volume has opposed 
many sharp difficulties to any sort of summary treat- 
ment need hardly be stated. It was of course a 
period of misunderstanding and of passion; and I 
cannot claim to have judged rightly in all cases as 
between parties. I can claim, however, impartiality 
of judgment ; for impartiality is a inatter of the heart, 
and I know with what disposition I have written. 

WOODROW WILSON. 
Princeton, N. J., October 24, 1892. 



SUGGESTIONS. 

The fact that this volume is small and contains a mere 
outline of events is expected to make it the more useful 
both to teachers and to the "general reader"; for no 
subject can be learned from a single book. Only a com- 
parison of authors and a combination of points of view 
can make any period of history really familiar. The 
briefer the preliminary sketch the better, if only it be 
made in just proportion. The use of this book should be 
to serve as a centre from which to extend reading or in- 
quiry upon particular topics. The teacher should verify 
its several portions for himself by a critical examination, 
so far as possible, of the sources of information. His 
pupils should be made to do the same thing, to some ex- 
tent, by being sent to standard authors who have written 
on the same period. The bibliographies prefixed to the 
several chapters are meant for the pupil rather than for 
the teacher. They are, for the most part, guides to the 
best known and most accessible secondary authorities, 
rather than to the original sources themselves. They 
ought to be acceptable, therefore, to the general reader 
also, who is a pupil without a teacher. If he wishes to 
seek further than these references carry him, he will find 
the books mentioned a key to all the rest. 

The following brief works may serve for reference or 
comparison, or for class use in the fuller preparation of 
topics. 



X Suggestions, 

1. Edward Channing: A Studenfs History of the United 
States. New York: Macmillan, 1898. — A full and scholarly 
narrative. 

2. Davis Rich Dewey : Finajicial History of the United 
States {American Citizen Series). New York: Longmans, 
Green & Co., 1903. — Excellently clear and lucid account, with 
incidental sketches of industrial and economic change. 

3. Albert Bushnell Hart : Essentials of American His- 
tory. New York: American Book Co., 1905. — Good com- 
pendium of the necessary facts. 

4-7. James Schouler: History of the United States of 
America tinder the Constitution. Vols, iii.-vi. New York : 
Dodd, Mead & Co., 1889-1899. — A careful narrative, brought 
down to 1865. It should be used with caution, because of its 
strong bias of sympathy in the sectional controversy. 

8, 9. Carl Schurz: Life of Henry Clay {American States- 
men Series). 2 vols. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1887. 
— Covers the period 1777-1852. 

10. Edward Stanwood : A History of Presidential Elec. 
tions. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1898. — An account 
of the political events of each presidential campaign, with the 
platforms and a statement of the votes. 

11. Westel W. VVilloughby: The A77ierican Constitu- 
tional System [American State Series). New York: Century 
Co., 1904. — Very useful sketch of the development of our 
public constitutional law. 

A fair working library in American History would be fur- 
nished by the following volumes, in addition to the foregoing. 

A. Bibliography. 

1. Edward Channing and Albert Bushnell Hart : 
A Guide to the Study of American History. Boston : Ginn & 
Co., 1896. — An excellent manual for students, teachers, and 
general readers. 

2. J. N. Earned: Literature of American History. Boston: 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1902. — Is fuller than above, and 



List of Reference Books* xi 

more nearly up to date ; and is also featured by authoritative 
critical estimates of many of the works mentioned. 



B. General. 

3-20. Albert Bushnell Hart, Editor : The Ajnerican 
Nation. New York: Harpers, 1904-1907. — All of the vol- 
umes of this series are extremely useful and some are excellent. 
Volumes x.-xxvi. cover our national history from the close 
of the Revolution. 

C. Special Histories. 

21-28. John Bach McMaster : History of the People of 
the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War. New 
York : D. Appleton & Co. Six volumes have been published, 
the sixth in 1904; the seventh will soon appear. — A splendid 
account of the course of public opinion in the United States, 
drawn from its records. 

29-35. James Ford Rhodes : History of the United States 
from the Compromise of iS^o. Seven volumes. New York: 
The Macmillan Co., 1906. — Perhaps the finest piece of his- 
torical work yet done by an American. The narrative is 
brought down to 1877. 

D. Biographies. 

36-69. John T. Morse, Editor : The American Statesmen 
Series. Thirty-four volumes. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & 
Co. — Most of these volumes are of a high standard of 
excellence, 

70-81. Ellis Paxson Oberholzer, Editor: The American 
Crisis Series. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1908. 
Twelve volumes are already published or about to be. — An 
endeavor is made to tell the story of the Civil War, its causes, 
and consequences from the stand-point of the present genera- 
tion. The volumes are of a high grade. 



xii Suggestions. 

E. Sources. 

82, 83. Thomas H. Benton : Thirty Years* View, or, A 
History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty 
Years, from i?>20-i2><p. 2 vols. New York: D. Appleton & 
Co., 1861-1862. 

84-85. James G. Blaine: Twenty Years of Congress, 1^61- 
1881. 2 vols. Norwich, Conn.: Henry Bill Pub. Co., 1886. 

Though the works of contemporaries and of participants, 
the accounts which Benton and Blaine give of the course of 
debate and legislation in Congress, for their respective periods, 
are surprisingly fair. 

86,87. Albert Bushnell Hart, Editor: American His- 
tory Told by Contemporaries. — Vols, iii., iv. New York : The 
Macmillan Co., 1898. — Excellent for illustrative purposes. 

88, 89. William MacDonald, Editor : Select Documents 
Illustrative of the History of the United States. 1776-1861 ; and 
Select Statutes, 1861-1898. New York : The Macmillan Co., 
1898 and 1903. — Very useful for the purpose indicated. 

90-97. John Bassett Moore: International Law Digest, 
8 vols. Published by the Government, 1906. — A record of 
our diplomacy arranged topically. Of great value. 



CONTENTS, 



L 

INTRODUCTORY. 

PAGES 

1. References * . . 1-2 

CHAPTER I. 

THE STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT IN 1829. 

2. A new epoch, p. 2.-3. A material ideal, p. 3. — 

4. Speed and character of growth, p. 4- — 5- ^ ^^^^^ 
nation, p. 5. — 6. Limitations upon culture, p. 7. — 
7. Political conditions in 1829, p. 9.— 8. Develop- 
ment of parties (1789-1824), p. 12. — 9. Election of 
1824-1825, p. 17. — 10. The accession of Jackson 
(1825-1829), p. 19 • 2-21 

II. 

A PERIOD OF CRITICAL CHANGE (1829-1841). 

11. References -^ 22 

CHAPTER II. 

PARTY SPIRIT AND POLICY UNDER JACKSON (1829-1833). 

12. The new President (1829), p. 23. — 13. New political 

forces (1829), p. 24. — 14. Causes of Jackson's suc- 
cess (1829-1837), p. 25. — 15. Appointments to 



xiv Contents. 

PAGES 

office (1829-1830), p. 26. — 16. Jackson's advisers, 
(1829-1830), p. 28. — 17. The " spoils system " 
(1829-1830), p. 30. — 18. Responsibility for the 
system (1829-1830), p 32, — 19. The Democratic 
programme (1829), p. 34. — 20. The Indian ques- 
tion (1802-1838), p. 35. — 21. Internal improve- 
ments (1829-1837), p. 38. — 22. Sectional divergence, 
p. 39. — 23. The public land question {1829-1830), 
p. 41. — 24. The debate on Foot's resolution (1830), 
p. 43. — 25. Tariff legislation (1816-1829), p. 48. — 
26. Effect of the tarifif upon the South (1816-1829), 
p. 49. — 27. Constitutional question of the tariff 
(1829), p. 51. — 28. Calhoun and Jackson (1818- 
1831), p. 52. — 29. Reconstruction of the cabinet 
(i83i),p. 54 — 30. South Carolina's protests against 
the tariff (1824-1832), p. 55. — 31. Nullification 
(1832), p. 59. — 32. Presidential election of 1832, p. 
62. — 33. Compromise and reconciliation (1832- 
1S33), p. 65 23-68 



CHAPTER III. 

THE BANK QUESTION (1829-1837). 

34. The Bank of the United States (1789-1816), p. 69.^ 
35. Constitutionality of the Bank (1789-1819), p. 
70. — 36. Jackson's hostility to the Bank ( 1829- 
1830), p. 72. — 37. History of banking in the United 
States (1783-1829), p. 74. — 38. The branch bank 
at Portsmouth {1829), p. 76. — 39. Constitution of 
the Bank (1816-1832), p. 78. — 40. The fight for re- 
^ charter (1832), p. 79. — 41. Removal of the deposits 
(1832-1833), p. 80. — 42. Censure and protest (1833- 
1834), p. 83. — 43. Diplomatic successes (1829-1831), 
p. 84. — 44. Distribution of the surplus (1833- 
1836), p. 86. — 45. The "pet banks" (1833-1836), 
p. 88.-46. Inflation (1833-1836), p. 89.-47. The 
specie circular (1836), p. 91 69-92 



The Slavery Question, ■ xv 

CHAPTER IV. 

ADMINISTRATION OF VAN BUREN (1837-1S41). 

PAGES 

48. Financial crisis (1837), p. 93. — 49. Banking reform 
( 1837-1841 ), p. 95. — 50. The Independent Treasury 
(1840), p. 97. — 51. The Democrats discredited 
(1840), p. 98. — 52. A new era of material develop- 
ment (1830-1840), p. 102. — 53. Economic changes 
and the South (1829-1841), p. 104. — 54. Structure 
of southern society ( 1829-1841 ), p. 105. — 55. An in- 
tellectual awakening (1829-1841), p. 108. — 56. The 
extension of the suffrage, p. iii. — 57. The re-for- 
mation of parties (1829-1841), p. 112. — 58. Char- 
acter of the Jacksonian period (1829-1841), p. 
115 ' • • 03-"5 



III. 

THE SLAVERY QUESTION (1842-1856). 

59. References >...«. ..116 

CHAPTER V. 

THE SLAVERY SYSTEM. 

60. Conditions favorable to agitation, p. 117. — 61. An- , 

tecedents of the anti-slavery movement, p. 119. — 
62. Occasion of the anti-slavery movement, p. 121. 
— 63. Establishment of the system of slavery, p. 
123. — 64. Conditions of slave life, p. 125. — 65. Eco- 
nomic and political effects of slavery, p. 127. — 
66. Legal status of slavery, p. 129 11 7-132 



x.i Contents, 

CHAPTER VI. 

TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR (1836-1848). 

PAGES 

67. The Whig programme (1841), p. 133. — 68. The Vice- 
President succeeds (1841), p. 135. — 69. The pro- 
gramme miscarries (1842), p. 137. — 70. Some Whig 
measures saved (1842), p. 139. — 71. The Independ- 
ent State of Texas (1819-1836), p. 141. — 72. First 
steps towards annexation (1837-1844), p. 143. — 
73. Presidential campaign of 1844, p. 145. — 74. The 
Oregon question (1844-1846), p. 147. — 75. The 
Texan boundary dispute (1845-1846), p. 149. — 
76. War with Mexico (1846-1848), p. 150. — 77. The 
Wilmot Proviso (1846), p. 152, — 78. The rest of 
the Democratic programme (1846-1847), p. 154. — 
79. Slavery and the Mexican cession (1846-1848), 
p. 155. — 80. The presidential election of 1848, 
p. 157 133-160 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE TERRITORIES OPENED TO SLAVERY (1848-1856). 

61. Political and economic changes (1840-1850), p. 161. — 
82. Immigration {1845-1850), p. 163. — 83. Issue 
joined on the slavery question (1849), P- 165. — 84. In- 
dependent action by the Territories (1848-1850), p. 
167. — 85. Compromise debated (1850), p. 169. — 
86. Compromise effected (1850), p. 172. — 87. The 
Fugitive Slave Law (1850-1852), p. 174. — 88. Pres- 
idential campaign of 1852, p. 178. — 89. Symptoms 
of change (1851-1853), p. 180. — 90. Repeal of the 
Missouri compromise (1854), p. 182. — 91. The Kan- 
sas struggle (1854-1857), p. 185. —92. The Repub- 
lican party (1854-1856), p. 187. — 93. Territorial 
aggrandizement (1853-1854), p. 188. — 94. Presiden- 
tial campaign of 1856, p. 190 ...«*.. 161-193 



Secession and Civil War, xvii 

IV. 

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR (1856-1865). 

PAGES 

95. References I94-I95 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SECESSION (1856-1861). 

96. Financial stringency (1857), p. 196. — 97. The Dred 
Scott decision (1857), p. 197. — 98. The Kansas 
question again (1857-1858), p. 199. — 99. The Lin- 
coln-Douglas debate (1858), p. 201. — 100. John 
Brown's raid (1858), p. 202. — loi. Presidential cam- 
paign of i860, p. 204. — 102. Significance of the 
result, p. 208. — 103. Secession (1860-1861), p. 
210 196-212 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE CIVIL WAR (1861-1865). 

104 A period of hesitation (1861), p. 213. — 105. Pres- 
ident Lincoln (1861), p. 216. — 106. Opening of hos- 
tilities (1861), p. 218. — 107. The war pohcy of 
Congress (1861-1862), p. 219. — 108. Manassas and 
the Trent affair (1861), p. 221. — 109. Military oper- 
ations of 1862, p. 223. — no. The emancipation pro- 
clamation (1863), p. 226. — III. Radical measures 
(1862-1863), p. 227. — 112. Military operations of 
1863, p. 230. — 113. The national bank system (1863- 
1864), p. 232, — 114. Military operations of 1864, 
p. 233. — 115. Presidential election of 1864, p. 236. 
— 116. The end of the war (1865), p. 237 . , 213-238 



xviii Contents, 



CHAPTER X. 

CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT OF THE CONFEDERATE 

STATES. 

PAGES 

117. Method of secession (1860-1861), p. 239. — 118. The 
confederate constitution (1862), p. 242. — 119. Re- 
sources of the South (1861-1862), p. 244. — 120. 
War materials and men (1861-1865), p. 246. — 121. 
Financial measures (1861-1865), p. 247. — 122. Char- 
acter of the government (1861-1865), p. 249. — 123. 
Opposition and despair (1864), p. 250 .... 239-252 



V. 
REHABILITATION OF THE UNION (1865-1889). 

124. References » 253 

CHAPTER XL 

RECONSTRUCTION (1865-1870). 

125. The problem of reconstruction (1865-1870), p. 254. 
— 126. Policy of Andrew Johnson (1865), p. 257.— 
127. Acts of southern legislatures (1865-1866), p. 
260. — 128. The temper of Congress (1865), p. 261. 
— 129. The President vs. Congress (1866), p. 263. 
— 130. The Congressional programme (1866), p. 
265. — 131. Reconstruction by Congress (1867-1870), 
p. 266. — 132. Impeachment of the President (1868), 
p. 270. — ■ 133. Presidential campaign of 1868, 

p. 271 254-272 



Rehabilitation of the Union. xix 

CHAPTER XII. 

RETURN TO NORMAL CONDITIONS (1870-1876). 



PACKS 



134. Restoration of normal conditions, p. 273. — 135. 
Election troubles in the South (1872-1876), p. 275. 
— 136. Executive demoralization (1869-1877), p. 
277. — 137. Legislative scandals ( 1872-1873), p. 279, 
— 138. Serviceable legislation (1870-1875), p. 280. 
— 139. Reaction against the Republicans (1870- 
1876), p. 282. — 140. Contested election of 1876- 
1877, p. 284. — 141. The centennial year, p. 286 . 273-287 



VI. 
THE NEW UNITED STATES (1877-1909). 

142. References , 288 

CHAPTER XIII. 

INDUSTRIAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGE (1877-1897). 

143. The period 1877 to 1897, p. 289. — 144. Recon- 
struction undone : the New South, p. 292. — 145. 
New States : polygamy : Indian lands, p. 295. — 

146. Immigration : the Chinese question, p. 298. — 

147. Labor : strikes : the Pullman strike, p. 300. 
— 148. The trust problem : railway regulation, 
p. 304. — 149. The tariff question, p. 309. — 150. 
The currency question : free silver vs. the gold 
standard, p. 314. — 151. Civil service, p. 320.— 
152. Administrative measures, p. 322. — 153. Re- 
lations of the departments of government, p. 323. — 



XX Contents. 

PAGES 

154. The federal judiciary and the States, p. 324. 

155. Foreign relations, p. 325. — 156. Summary 

of the period, p. 327 289-327 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER (1898-I909). 

157. The war with Spain, p. 328. — 158. Steps leading 
to the intervention in Cuba, p. 328. — 159. The 
Spanish-American war, p. 332. — 160, Peace terms, 
p. 336. — 161. Congress and the new dependencies, 
p. 338. — 162. Establishment of government in 
Cuba, p. 342 — 163. The United States in the 
Orient, p. 344. — 164. The Panama Canal, p. 349. 
— 165. The United States and Latin America, 
p. 351. — 166. International arbitration, p. 353. — 
167. President Roosevelt's policies, p. 353. — 168. 
The United States after eighty years, p. 356 . 328-357 

Index .. o ...... 359 



LIST OF MAPS. 

r. Status of Slavery in the United States . . Frontispiece. 

2. Territorial Controversies, 1840-1850 . . End of volume. 

3. The United States, March 4, 1855 . . . End of volume. 

4. The United States, July 4, 1861 .... End of volume. 

5. The United States, March 4, 1885 . . . End of volume. 

6. The United States, March 4, 1909 . . . End ofvohmie. 



EPOCHS OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 



DIVISION AND REUNION. 

1829-1889. 



I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

1. References. 

Bibliographies. — Hart's Formation of the Union, §§ 69, 81, 93, 
106, 118, 130; Lalor's Cyclopaedia of Political Science (Johnston's 
articles on the several political parties); Foster's References to the 
History of Presidential Administrations, 22-26; Channing and Hart, 
Guide to American History, §§ 32, 33, 56a, 56b, 157-179; Oilman's 
Monroe, Appendix, 255; Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of 
America, vii. 255-266, 294-310, viii. 469 et seq., 491 et seq. 

Historical Maps. — Thwaites's Colonies, Map i; Hart's For- 
mation of the Union, Maps i, 3, 5 (Epoch Maps, Nos. i, 6, 7, 10); 
Scudder's History of the United States, Frontispiece (topographical); 
MacCoun's Historical Geography of the United States, series " Na- 
tional Growth " and " Development of the Commonwealth;" Scrib- 
ner's Statistical Atlas, Plates i (topographical), 13, 14. 

Special Histories. — Johnston's History of American Politics, 
chaps, i.-x. ; Stanwood's History of Presidential Elections, chaps, 
i.-xi. ; Henry Adams's John Randolph, 268-306; J. T. Morse's John 
Quincy Adams, 226-250; F. A. Walker's Making of the Nation; 
Carl Schurz's Henry Clay, 258-310; Theodore Roosevelt's Thomas 
H. Benton, 1-87 ; Tucker's History of the United States, iv. 409-515; 
Channing's Student's History of the United States, §§ 190-270. 

General Accounts. — Pitkin's History of the United States; 
McMaster's History of the People of the United States ; Von Hoist's 
Constitutional and Political History of the United States, ii. 1-31 , 
Schouler's History of the United States, iv. 1-31; Henry Adams's 
History of the United States, ix. 175-242; W. G. Sumner's Jackson, 
1-135 (chaps, i.-vi.); Larned's History for Ready Reference. 

I 



2 Stage of Development. [§§ 2, 3. 

Contemporary Accounts. — Michel Chevalier's Society, Man- 
ners, and Politics in the United States ; Albert Gallatin's Writings, ii. ; 
Josiah Quincy's Figures of the Past; Daniel Webster's Correspon- 
dence; Thomas H. Benton's Thirty Years' View, i. 70-118; John 
Quincy Adams's Memoirs, vi. 5-104; Alexander Johnston's Represen- 
tative American Orations ; Alexis de Tocquevihe's Democracy in 
America, Bowen's Translation, i. 1-72; Ben: Perley Poore, Perley's 
Reminiscences, i. 88-199; Sargent's Public Men and Events, i. 116-171 ; 
Mrs. Frances Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans ; Martin 
Van Buren's Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties, 
chapters v., vi. ; W. W. Story's Life and Letters of Joseph Story, i. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT (1829). 

2. A New Epocli. 

Many circumstances combine to mark the year 1829 as 
a turning point in the history of the United States. In 
Changed that year profound political changes occurred, 
conditions. produced by the forces of a great and singular 
national development, — forces long operative, but hitherto 
only in part disclosed. The revolution in politics which 
signalizes the presidency of Andrew Jackson as a new 
epoch in the history of the country was the culmination 
of a process of material growth and institutional expan- 
sion. The population of the country had increased from 
about four millions to almost thirteen millions within the 
forty years which had elapsed since the formation of the 
federal government in 1789. The new nation was now in 
the first flush of assured success. It had definitively suc- 
ceeded in planting new homes and creating new States 
Political throughout the wide stretches of the continent 
instincts. which lay between the eastern mountains and 
the Mississippi. It had once more proved the capacity 
of the English race to combine the rude strength and bold 



1H29.] A New Epoch. 3 

initiative that can subdue a wilderness with those self- 
controlling habits of ordered government that can build free 
and permanent states. Its blood was v/arm with a new 
ardor, its power heartened into a new confidence. Party 
strength and discipline in the mercantile and maritime 
States of the eastern coast could no longer always avail to 
decide the courses of politics. A new nation had been 
born and nurtured into self-reliant strength in the West, 
and it was nov/ to set out upon a characteristic career. 

The increase of population in the United States has 
from the first been extraordinarily rapid. In only a single 
Population decennial period, — that in which the great 
and immi- civil war occurred, — has the increase fallen 
below the rate of thirty per cent. Generally 
it has considerably exceeded that ratio. Before 1830 
very little of this increase was due to immigration : prob- 
ably not more than four hundred thousand immigrants 
are to be reckoned in the increase of nearh' nine millions 
which took place between 1790 and 1830; but within that 
period the pace was set for the great migration into the 
interior of the continent. 

At first that migration was infinitely difficult and pain- 
ful. It had to make its way over the mountains, and 
The west- through the almost impenetrable wilderness 
ward move- of forest that lay upon and beyond them, in 
lumbering vehicles which must needs have 
wide ways cut for them, and which, whether on smooth or 
on rough roads, vexed the slow oxen or jaded horses 
that drew them. Or else it must try the rivers in raft-like 
boats which could barely be pushed against the currents 
by dint of muscular use of long poles. 

3. A Material Ideal. 

It was an awkward, cumbersome business to subdue a 
continent in such wise, — hard to plan, and very likely 



4 Stage of Development. [§§3-5. 

impossible to execute. Under such circumstances, Na- 
ture was much bigger and stronger than man. She would 
Struggle suffer no sudden highways to be thrown across 
with Nature. |^gj. gpaces ; she abated not an inch of her 
mountains, compromised not a foot of her forests. Still, 
she did not daunt the designs of the new nation born on 
the sea-edge of her wilds. Here is the secret, — a secret 
so open, it would seem, as to baiSe the penetration of 
none, — which many witnesses of the material growth and 
territorial expansion of the United States have strangely 
failed to divine. The history of the country and the 
ambitions of its people have been deemed both sordid 
Inspiration "^^^ mean, inspired by nothing better than a 
of the task, desire for the gross comforts of material abun- 
dance ; and it has been pronounced grotesque that mere 
bigness and wealth should be put forward as the most 
prominent grounds for the boast of greatness. The 
obvious fact is that for the creation of the nation the 
conquest of her proper territory from Nature was first 
necessary ; and this task, which is hardly yet completed, 
has been idealized in the popular mind. A bold race has 
derived inspiration from the size, the difficulty, the danger 
of the task. 

Expansion has meant nationalization; nationalization 
has meant strength and elevation of view. 

" Be strong-backed, brown-handed, upright as your pines ; 
By the scale of a hemisphere shape your designs," 

is the spirited command of enthusiasm for the great 
physical undertaking upon which political success was 
conditioned. 

4. Speed and Character of Growth. 

Whatever fortune might have attended that undertak- 
ing by other instrumentalities, it is very clear that it was 



1790-1829.] Character of Grozvth. 5 

steam, and steam alone, that gave it speed and full assur- 
ance of ultimate success. Fulton had successfully applied 
Steam Steam to navigation in 1807, and immediately 

navigation. ^^^ immense practical value of his invention 
in the building up of a nation became evident. By 181 1 
steamboats had appeared in considerable numbers on the 
great river highways of the West ; and with their assist- 
ance the river valleys began rapidly to fill up with settlers. 
Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio, indeed, the first fruits 
of western settlement, had been created without the aid 
of steam, and were an earnest of what the nation had 
meant to accomplish, whether Nature were comphant or 
not. But it was not until 18 10 that States began rapidly 
to spring up. Within the period of little more 
than nme years, from April, 18 12, to August, 
1821, seven States were admitted to the Union; and by 
the latter date there were already eleven new States 
associated with the original thirteen in the conduct of the 
federal government. 

For fifteen years after the admission of Missouri no 
other State was created. During those years the popula- 
Distribution tion was being compacted rather than extended, 
of the people. ]s[q|- Q^iy were those districts entered and fillsd 
which settlement had hitherto left untouched in its hasty 
progress, but the density of population within the regions 
already occupied showed a marked rate of increase. The 
aggregate population of the nine States which had been 
created toward the west was already almost half as great 
as the aggregate population of the States which had 
formed the Union in 1789. 

5. A Rural K"ation. 

This growth of population, it is important to note, had 
not been creative of cities so much as of simple and for 
the most part sparsely settled agricultural communities, 



6 Stage of Development. [§§ 5, 6. 

living each its own arduous, narrow life in comparative iso- 
lation. Railways were just beginning to be built in 1830; 
Rural com- travellers moved slowly and with difficulty 
nmnuies. from place to place ; news was sluggish, ex- 
tended communication almost impossible. It was a time 
when local prejudices could be nursed in security; when 
old opinion was safe against disturbance; when discus- 
sion must be ill informed and dogmatic. The whole peo- 
ple, moreover, were self-absorbed, their entire energies 
consumed in the dull, prosaic tasks imposed upon them 
by their incomplete civilization. Everything v/as both 
doing "and to be done. There was no store of things ac- 
complished, and there must needs be haste in progress. 
Not many manufactures had been developed; compara- 
tively little agricultural produce was sent abroad. Ex- 
Manufac- ports there v/ere,^ indeed, but more imports. 

tures and -nt ■ i <- i i t . 

commerce. Neither of thcse, moreover, bore any direct 
proportion to the increase of population. When foreign 
wars or the failure of crops in Europe created prices in 
transatlantic markets which greatly tempted to exporta- 
tion, exportation of course took place, v/as even for a year 
or two greatly stimulated, — as, for example, in 1807. 
But presently it would fall to its old level again. The 
total value of the exports of 1829 was no greater than the 
total value of those of 1798. Manufactures, too, had 
been developed only upon a small scale by the War of 
1812 and the restrictive commercial policy which had 
attended and followed it. Jackson came to the pres- 
idency at the beginning of a new industrial era, when 
railways were about to quicken every movement of 
commercial enterprise and political intercourse, and when 
manufactures were about to be developed on the great 
scale, but before these changes had been accomplished or 
generally foreseen. Hitherto the country had dreamed 
little of the economic and social revolution that was to 



1 798-1829.] Industry and Culture. 7 

come. It was full of strength, but it was not various in 
its equipment. It was a big, ungainly, rural nation ; alert 
but uncultured ; honest and manly, but a bit vulgar and 
quite without poise ; self-conscious, but not self-contained, 
— a race of homespun provincials. 

6. liimitations upon Culture. 

There was, of course, not a little culture and refinement in 
some parts of the country. Among the wealthy planters 
of "the South there was to be seen, along with 
simple modes of rural life, a courtliness of 
bearing, a knowledge of the world and of books, and an 
easy adaptability to different kinds of society which ex- 
hibited only enough of the provincial to give them fresh- 
ness and piquancy. New Englanders of all sorts and 
conditions had been affected by a system of popular edu- 
cation, although they had by no means all partaken of it; 
and those of the better sort had received a college train- 
ing that had put them in the way of the higher means of 
culture. Books as well as life, old knowledge as well as 
new experience, schools as well as struggles with Nature, 
had gone to make up the American of the time. There 
were cultured families everywhere, and in some communi- 
ties even a cultivated class. But everything was condi- 
American tioned by the newness of the country. Judged 
society. \y^ ^he Standards of the older society of Europe, 

the life of Americans in their homes, and their behavior 
in public, seemed primitive and rude. Their manners were 
too free and noisy, their information touching things that 
did not immediately concern themselves too limited, their 
inquisitiveness too little guarded by delicacy, their eti- 
quette too accidental. Their whole life, though interest- 
ing by reason of its ceaseless activity and movement, and 
inspiriting by reason of its personal courage and initia- 
tive, was ungainly, unsuited to the drawing-room. There 



8 Stage of Development. [§§ 6, 7. 

was too much strain, and too little grace. Men took their 
work too seriously, and did not take social amenities seri- 
ously enough. Their energy was fine, but had too little 
dignity and repose. 

In the literature of culture and imagination, Americans 
had as yet done almost nothing. Their literary work, like 
their work of settlement and institutional de- 
velopment, had hitherto been subject to the 
stress of theology and politics. Their best minds had 
bent themselves to the thoughts that might make for pro- 
gress, to the task of constructing systems of conduct and 
devising safe plans of reform. A literature of wisdom 
had grown up ; but there had been no burst of song, no 
ardor of creative im.agination. Oratory, deserving to 
rank with that already classical, flourished as almost the 
only form of imaginative art. 

In brief, the nation had not yet come into possession 
either of leisure or of refinement. Its strength was rough 
and ready; its thought chastened only in those spheres 
Intellectual i^i which it had had experience. It had been 
conditions. making history and constructing systems of 
politics, and in such fields its thinking was informed and 
practised. But there was too much haste and noise for 
the more delicate faculties of the mind ; men could not 
pause long enough for profound contemplation ; and there 
was very, little in the strenuous life about them to quicken 
the quieter and more subtle powers of poetic interpreta- 
tion. The country was as yet, moreover, neither homo- 
geneous nor united. Its elements were being stirred hotly 
together. A keen and perilous ferment was necessary ere 
the pure, fine wine of ultimate national principle should 
be produced. With full, complex, pulsing life, penetrated 
by the sharp and intricate interplay of various forces, and 
yet consciously single and organic, was to come also the 
literature of insight and creation. 



1829.] IntellecUial and Political Conditions. 9 



7. Political Conditions in 1829. 

The election of Andrew Jackson marked a point of 
significant change in American poHtics, — a change in 
New political personnel and in spirit, in substance and in 
characteristics, method. Colonial America, seeking to con- 
struct a union, had become national America, seeking 
to realize and develop her united strength, and to express 
her new life in a new course of politics. The States 
which had originally drawn together to form the Union 
now found themselves caught in a great national drift, 
the direction of their development determined by forces 
as pervasive and irresistible as they v/ere singular and 
ominous. Almost immediately upon entering the period 
of Jackson's administrations, the student finds himself, 
as if by a sudden turn, in the great highway of legislative 
and executive policy which leads directly to the period 
of the civil war, and, beyond that, to the United States 
of our own day. The tariff becomes a question of sec- 
tional irritation ; the great Bank of the United States is 
destroyed, and our subsequent fiscal policy made neces- 
sary ; the Indians are refused protection within the States, 
and given over to the tender mercies of border agencies ; 
the slavery question enters its period of petition and pub- 
lic agitation, fulfilling the warning of the Missouri de- 
bates. More significant still, a new spirit and method 
appear in the contests of parties. The " spoils system " 
of appointment to office is introduced into national ad- 
ministration, and personal allegiance is made the disci- 
pline of national party organization. All signs indicate 
the beginning of a new period. 

During the forty years of federal organization which 
had preceded 1829, the government had remained under 
the influence of the generation of statesmen which had 
conceived and framed the Constitution. It had been 



lO Stage of Development. [§ 7. 

conducted with all the conservatism of an old govern- 
ment. Washington, Joim Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and 
Monroe, the first five Presidents, were all of 
spirit of them men whose principles had been imbibed 

politics. while the colonies were still subject to Eng- 

land. Their first training in affairs had been derived 
from experience acquired in communities whose politics 
had long run in lines parallel with the politics of their 
mother-country, whose institutions got their spirit and 
pattern from old-world originals. They were, in a sense, 
old-world politicians. Their views were clarified and 
their purposes elevated, no doubt, by their association 
with the purer and more elementary conditions of life in 
new communities ; but they displayed a steady conserva- 
tive habit in the conduct of affairs which distinguishes 
them from all subsequent generations of public men in 
the United States. John Quincy Adams, the sixth Presi- 
dent, though of a new generation, was not of a new strain. 
His training had worked the principles of his father's 
school into every fibre of his stiff structure. His ideas 
of public duty were the old tonic, with the addition of a 
little acid. 

Despite the apparent "revolution " involved in separa- 
tion from England, there had really been an almost un- 
Nevv political broken continuity in our politics from the first 
conditions. \yci\SS. 1 824. Immigration from Europe did 
not begin seriously to affect the original strain of blood 
amongst us till the first generation of national states- 
men was passing away. Not till then, either, did expan- 
sion westward, and the erection of new States remote 
from the coast, begin to tell upon our politics by the 
infusion of a decided flavor of newness. The colonial 
States were of course themselves a bit raw and callow as 
compared with the seasoned growths of European his- 
tory ; but even they had acquired some of the mellowness 



1789-1829.] Political Conditions. ii 

and sedateness of age. The new States, on the other 
hand, which came rapidly into being after the Revolution, 
Expansion Were at a much greater remove from old tradi- 
and change, ^ion and settled habit, and were in direct contact 
with difficulties such as breed rough strength and a bold 
spirit of innovation. They brought into our national life 
a sort of frontier self-assertion which quickly told upon 
our politics, shaking the government out of its old 
sobriety, and adding a spice of daring personal initiative, 
a power also of blind personal allegiance, to public life. 
The inauguration of Jackson brought a new class of men 
into leadership, and marks the beginning, for good or for 
ill, of a distinctively American order of politics, begotten 
of the crude forces of a new nationahty. A change of 
poHtical weather, long preparing, had finally set in. The 
new generation which asserted itself in Jackson was not 
in the least regardful of conservative tradition. It had 
no taint of antiquity about it. It was distinctively new 
and buoyantly expectant. 

Moreover, the public stage had been cleared for it. 
The old school of pohticians had been greatly thinned 
Political by death, and was soon to disappear alto- 

ieaders. gether. Only Madison, Marshall, Monroe, 

and Gallatin remained, and only Marshall remained in 
authority. Monroe had but two more years to live. 
Madison, who had retired from active life in 181 7, was 
drawing towards the end even of his final function of 
mild and conciliatory oracle. Gallatin Vi^as to live till 
1849, but nobody was to call upon him again for public 
service. The generation to which these men belonged 
did not, indeed, altogether fail of successors. The tradi- 
tions of statesmanship which they had cherished were to 
lose neither dignity nor vigor in the speech and conduct 
of men like Webster and the better New England Fed- 
eralists ; but they were to be constrained to adapt them- 



1 2 Stage of Development. [§§ 7, 8. 

selves to radically novel circumstances. Underneath the 
conservative initiative and policy of the earlier years of 
the government there had all along been working the 
potent leaven of democracy, slowly but radically chang- 
ing conditions both social and political, foreshadowing 
a revolution in political method, presaging the overthrow 
of the "money-power" of the Federalist mercantile 
classes, and antagonism towards all too conspicuous 
vested interests. 

8. Development of Parties (1789-1824). 

The federal government was not by intention a demo- 
cratic government. In plan and structure it had been 
meant to check the sweep and power of popu- 
ai'ter oHhe^'^' lar majorities. The Senate, it was believed, 
government. ^Quld be a stronghold of conservatism, if not 
of aristocracy and wealth. The President, it was expected, 
would be the choice of representative men acting in the 
electoral college, and not of the people. The federal 
Judiciary was looked to, with its virtually permanent 
membership, to hold the entire structure of national 
politics in nice balance against all disturbing influences, 
whether of popular impulse or of ofncial overbearance. 
Only in the House of Representatives were the people to 
be accorded an immediate audience and a direct means 
of making their will effective in affairs. The govern- 
ment had, in fact, been originated and organized upon 
the initiative and primarily in the interest of the mer- 
cantile and wealthy classes. Originally conceived in an 
effort to accommodate commercial disputes between the 
States, it had been urged to adoption by a minority, 
under the concerted and aggressive leadership of able 
men representing a ruling class. The Federalists not 
only had on their side the power of convincing argument, 
but also the pressure of a strong and intelligent ciass^ 



1 789-1801. 3 Development of Parties. 13 

possessed of unity and informed by a conscious solidarity 
of material interest. 

Hamilton, not only the chief administrative architect 
of the government, but also the author of the graver and 
Federal more lasting parts of its policy in the critical 

hierarchy. formative pcHod of its infancy, had consciously 
and avowedly sought to commend it by its m_easures first 
of all and principally to the moneyed classes, — to the 
men of the cities, to whom it must look for financial sup- 
port. That such a policy was eminently v/ise there can of 
course be no question. But it was not eminently demo- 
cratic. There can be a moneyed aristocracy, but there 
cannot be a moneyed democracy. There were ruling 
classes in that day, and it was imperatively necessary 
that their interest should be at once and thoroughly en 
listed. But there was a majority also, and it was from 
that majority that the nation v/as to derive its real energy 
and character. During the administrations of Washing- 
ton and John Adams the old federal hierarchy remained 
virtually intact ; the conservative, cultivated, propertied 
classes of New England and the South practically held 
the government as their own. But with Jefferson there 
came the first assertion of the force which was to trans- 
form American politics, — the force of democracy. 

So early did these forces form themselves for ascen- 
dency that, had foreign influences been shut out, and the 
normal conditions of domestic politics preserved, the 
^. , , Federalists would probably have been forced 

First demo- ^ , , . . 

cratic move- from power after the second admmistration 
™®°*- of Washington, and John Adams would have 

been excluded from the presidency. But the identifica- 
tion of the Democrats with the cause of the revolutionary 
party in France delayed their accession to power. At 
first sympathy with the French revolutionists had been 
the predominant sentim.ent in America. Even Washing 



14 Stage of Development. [§ S. 

ton's popularity was in a marked degree diminished by 
his committing the country to neutrality when France 
went to war with England. When, in addition to this, he 
signed Jay's treaty, which secured commercial privileges, 
indeed, in our trade with the English, but which gave up 
unquestionable international rights, indignation turned to 
wrath; and the man who had been universally revered 
as the savior of his country was freely and most cruelly 
denounced as little better than a traitor. But the tide 
turned. The commercial advantages secured 
by Jay's treaty proved more considerable 
than had been thought, and placated not a few among 
the opposition. The insane impudence of Genet and the 
excesses of his Republican supporters had alienated the 
moderate and the thoughtful. John Adams was elected 
President, and his party once more gained a majority in 
Congress. France, too, straightway did all she could to 
strengthen the reaction. By insulting and hostile meas- 
ures she brought about an actual conflict of arms with 
the United States, and Federalist ascendency was appar- 
ently once more assured. 

But the war spirit thus so suddenly and unexpectedly 
created in their behalf only lured the Federalists to their 
Fall of the own destruction. Blinded by the ardor and 
Federalists self-confidence of the moment, they forced 
through Congress the arbitrary Alien and Sedition Laws. 
These laws excited the livehest hostility and fear through- 
out the country. Virginia and Kentucky, at the sugges- 
tion of no less persons than Jefferson and Madison, 
uttered their famous Resolutions. The Federalists had 
added to their original sin of representing the moneyed 
and aristocratic classes, and to their later fault of hostil- 
ity to France and friendship for England, the final of- 
fence of using the powers of the federal government to 
suppress freedom of speech and trial by jury. It was a 



i794-i8i7-] Development of Parties. 1 5 

huge and fatal blunder, and it was never retrieved. With 
the close of John Adams's administration the power of 
the Federalists came to an end. 

Jefferson was the fittest possible representative of the 
reaction against them. Not only did he accept quite 
Thomas Completely the abstract French democratic 

Jefferson. philosophy which had proved so hot an in- 
fluence in the blood of his fellow Republicans while they 
sought to support the revolution in France ; he also 
shared quite heartily the jealousy felt by the agricultural 
South and West towards cities, with their rich merchants 
and manufacturers, towards the concentration of capital, 
towards all " special interests." Both in dogma and in 
instinctive sympathies he was a typical Democrat. 

The future, it turned out, was with the Republican 
party. The expansion of the country proved to be an 
Democracy expansion also of democratic feeling and 
predominant, method. Slowly, Steadily, the growth of new 
communities went on, — communities chiefly agricultural, 
sturdily self-reliant, strenuously aggressive, absorbed in 
their own material development, not a little jealous of the 
trading power in the East. The old Federalist party, 
the party of banks, of commercial treaties, of conserva- 
tive tradition, was not destined to hve in a country every 
day developing a larger " West," tending some day to be 
chiefly " West." For, as was to have been expected, the 
political example of the new States was altogether and 
Extension Unreservedly on the side of unrestricted popu- 
of suffrage, jg^j- privilege. In all of the original thirteen 
States there were at first important limitations upon the 
suffrage. In this point their constitutions were not copied 
by the new States ; these from the first made their suf- 
frage universal. And their example reacted powerfully 
upon the East. Constitutional revision soon began in 
the old States, and constitutional revision in every case 



1 6 Stage of Development. [§§8,9. 

meant, among other things, an extension of the suffrage. 
Parties in the East speedily felt the change. No longer 
protected by a property qualification, aristocracies like 
that of New England, where the clergy and the lawyers 
held respectable people together in ordered party array, 
went rapidly to pieces, and popular majorities began 
everywhere to make their weight tell in the conduct of 
affairs. 

Monroe's terms of office served as a sort of intermediate 
season for parties, — a period of disintegration and ger- 
mination. Apparently it was a time of pohtical unity, an 
" era of good feeling," when all men were of one party 
Monroe's ^^id of One mind. But this was only upon the 
presidency, surface. The Federalist party was a wreck, 
and had left the title " Federalist " a name of ill-repute 
which few any longer chose to bear; but the Federalist 
spirit and the Federalist conception of politics were not 
dead. These were still vital in the minds of all who 
wished to see the material and political development of 
the country quickened by a liberal construction and pro- 
gressive employment of the powers of the general govern- 
ment. Such germs were quick, therefore, to spring up 
into that National Republican party which was to become 
known in later days as " Whig," and which was to carry 
on the old Federalist tradition of strong powers exten- 
sively employed. While Monroe remained President 
such divisions as existed showed themselves for the most 
part merely as individual differences of opinion and per- 
sonal rivalries. Divergent proposals of policy there were, 
votes and counter-votes ; Congress by no means pre- 
sented the picture of a happy family. In the very mid- 
dle of the period, indeed, came the sharp contest over the 
admission of Missouri as a slave State, with its startling 
threat of sectional alienation. But party lines did not 
grow distinct; party organization was slow to take form. 



1817-1825.] Election of 1824, 1825. 17 



9. Election of 1824, 1825. 

By the presidential campaign of 1824 party politics 
were given a more definite form and direction. That 
campaign has, with more force than elegance, 
been described as "the scrub race for the 
presidency." The old parties were no longer in exis- 
tence ; the old party machinery would no longer work. It 
had been customary to give party candidates their nomi- 
nation by congressional caucus; but the caucus which 
now got together to nominate William H. Crawford of 
Georgia consisted of a mere handful of his personal 
friends. New England made it known that her candidate 
was John Quincy Adams ; Clay was put forward by politi- 
cal friends in the Legislatures of Kentucky, Louisiana, 
Missouri, Illinois, and Ohio ; the legislators of Tennessee 
and many State conventions in other parts of the country 
put Andrew Jackson in nomination. A bitter personal 
contest ensued between men all nominally of the same 
party. So far as it turned upon principles at all, it was 
generally understood that Clay and Adams were in favor 
of a broad construction of the Constitution, and a liberal 
expenditure of the federal revenue for internal improve- 
ments; while Crawford and Jackson were strict construc- 
tionists, and therefore inclined to deny the constitution- 
ahty of such outlays. The results of the election were 
Results of not a little novel and starthng. It had been a 
the election, great innovation that a man like Andrew Jack- 
son should be nominated at all. No other candidate had 
ever been put forward who had not served a long appren- 
ticeship, and won honorable reputation as a statesman in 
the public service. There had even been established a 
sort of succession to the presidency. Jefferson had been 
Washington's Secretary of State; Madison, Jefferson's; 
Monroe, Madison's. In this line of succession John 

2 



1 8 Stage of Development. [§§9iio. 

Quincy Adams was the only legitimate candidate, for he 
was Secretary of State under Monroe. Jackson had never 
been anything of national importance except a successful 
soldier. It was unprecedented that one so conspicuously 
outside the ranks of administrative and legislative service 
should seek the highest civil office in the gift of the people. 
It was absolutely startling that he should receive more 
electoral votes than any of the other candidates. And 
yet so it happened. Jackson received 99 votes, while only 
84 were cast for Adams, 41 for Crawford, 37 for Clay. It 
was perhaps significant, too, that these votes came more 
directly from the people than ever before. Until 1820, 
presidential electors had been chosen in almost all the 
States by the state legislatures ; but in 1824 they were so 
chosen in only six States out of the twenty-four. In the 
rest they were elected directly by the people, and it was 
possible to estimate that almost fifty thousand more votes 
had been cast for the Jackson electors than for those who 
had voted for Adams. No one of the candidates having 
received an absolute majority of the electoral vote, the 
election went into the House of Representatives, where, 
Choice by with the aid of Clay's friends, Adams was 
the House. chosen. It was then that the significance of 
the popular majority received its full emphasis. The 
friends of Jackson protested that the popular will had 
been disregarded, and their candidate shamefully, even 
corruptly, they beHeved, cheated of his rights. The 
dogma of popular sovereignty received a new and extraor- 
dinary application, fraught with important consequences. 
Jackson, it was argued, being the choice of the people, 
was "entitled" to the presidency. From a constitutional 
point of view the doctrine was nothing less than revolu- 
tionary. It marked the rise of a democratic theory very 
far advanced beyond that of Jefferson's party, and des- 
tined again and again to assert itself as against strict con- 
stitutional principle. 



1825-1828.] Accession of Jackson. 19 

10. The Accession of Jackson (1825-1829). 

Adams being seated in the presidential chair, the crys- 
tallization of parties went rapidly forward. Groups tended 
more and more to coalesce as parties. The personal 
traits of Adams doubtless contributed to hasten the pro- 
cess. His character, cold, unbending, uncompanionable, 
harsh, acted like an acid upon the party mixture of the 
Efc-formation day, precipitating all the elements hitherto 
ot parties. held in solution. He would placate no antag- 
onisms, he would arrange no compromises, he sought no 
friends. His administration, moreover, startled and alien- 
ated conservative persons by its latitudinarianism upon 
constitutional questions. It was frankly liberal in its 
views ; it showed the governing, as opposed to the popu- 
lar, habit. It frightened those who, like the Southerners, 
had peculiar privileges to protect, and it provoked the 
jealousy of those whom it had so narrowly defeated, the 
personal admirers and followers of Jackson. 

The supporters of Jackson did not for a moment accept 
the event of the election of 1825 as decisive. The "sov- 
ereignty of the people," — that is, of the vote cast for Jack- 
son, — should yet be vindicated. The new administration 
Campaign was hardly seven months old before the Legis- 
of 1828. lature of Tennessee renewed its nomination 

of Jackson for the presidency. The "campaign of 1828 " 
may be said to have begun in 1825. For three whole 
years a contest, characterized by unprecedented virulence, 
and pushed in some quarters by novel and ominous 
methods, stirred the country into keen partisan excite- 
ment. The President foimd his office stripped in part of 
its weight and prestige. For the first time since 1801 the 
presidential messages failed to suggest and shape the bus- 
iness of Congress : Adams fared as leader of a faction, not 
as head of the government. Old party discipline and 



20 Stage of Development. [§ lo. 

allegiance had disappeared; there was now nothing but 
the sharp and indecisive struggle of rival groups and 
coteries. And by one of these a new discipline and prin- 
ciple of allegiance was introduced into national politics. 
In New York and Pennsylvania there had already sprung 
into existence that machinery of local committees, nomi- 
nating caucuses, primaries, and conventions with v/hich 
later times have made us so familiar ; and then, as now, 
this was a machinery whose use and reason for existence 
were revealed in the distribution of offices as rewards for 
party service. The chief masters of its uses were "Jack- 
son men," and the success of their party in 1828 resulted 
in the nationalization of their methods. 

Jackson carried New York, Pennsylvania, and the 
West and South against New Jersey and New England, 
Jackson's ^.nd could claim a popular majority of almost 
election. Qj^g hundred and forty thousand. In 1828 

the electors were voted for directly in every State, except 
Delaware and South Carolina. Jackson could claim with 
sufficient plausibility that the popular will had at last 
been vindicated. That the people are sovereign had 
been the central dogma of democratic thought ever since 
the day of Jefferson and the triumph under him of the 
" Democratic-Republican" party; but it had not received 
at the hands of that party its full logical expansion and 
application. The party of Jefferson, created by opposi- 
tion to the vigorous centrahzing measures of the Federal- 
ists, held as its cardinal, distinctive tenet the principle 
jeffersonian that the Constitution should be strictly, even 
vs. Jackson- liberally, construed ; that its checks and bal- 

lan Democ- y ' ' 

racy. ances should be made and kept effective ; 

that the federal authorities should learn and observe 
moderation, abstention from meddlesome activity. But 
the logic of popular sovereignty operated, under other cir- 
cumstances, in a quite opposite direction, as presently 



1S28, 1829.] Jacksonian DeiJtocracy. 21 

appeared. When, in 1824 Jackson, after having received 
a plurality of the electoral votes, backed by what was 
thought to be a virtual popular majority, had nevertheless 
been defeated in the House of Representatives, the cry 
of his followers had been that there was a conspiracy to 
defeat the will of the people. Beyond all question the 
election of Adams had been perfectly constitutional. It 
could not be doubted that the Constitution had intended 
the House to exercise a real choice as betvv^een the three 
candidates who had received the highest number of votes 
when the electors had failed to give to any one a major- 
ity. The position of the Jackson men was plainly incom- 
patible with any valid interpretation of the Constitution, 
most of all with a strict and literal construction of it. The 
plain intent of their doctrine was that the votes of popular 
majorities should command the action of every depart- 
ment of the government. It meant national popular 
verdicts ; it meant nationalization. 

The democracy of Jefferson had been very different. 
It had entertained very ardently the conviction that gov- 
ernment must emanate from the people and be conducted 
in their interest ; but the Jeffersonians had deemed it the 
essence of democracy to confine government to the little 
home areas of local administration, and to have as little 
governing anywhere as possible. It was not a theory 
of omnipotence to which they held, but a theory of 
method and sanction. They could not have imagined 
the Jacksonian dogma, that anything that the people 
willed was right ; that there could not be too much omni- 
potence, if only it were the omnipotence of the mass, the 
might of majorities. They were analysts, not absolutists. 



II. 

A PERIOD OF CRITICAL CHANGE 

(1829-1837). 

11. References. 

Bibliographies. — Sumner's Andrew Jackson, passim ; Foster's 
References to the History of Presidential Administrations, 22-26; 
Lalor's Cyclopaedia of Political Science (Johnston's articles, "Demo- 
cratic Party," " Nullification," " Bank Controversies," " Whig Party," 
etc.); Adams's Manual of Historical Literature, 566 et seq.; Winsor's 
Narrative and Critical History, vii. 255-266, 294-310; viii. ^Ggeiseq.f 
W. F. Allen's History Topics, 109-111; Channing and Hart, Guide 
to American History, §§ 56a, 56b, 180-189. 

Historical Maps. — A. B. Hart's Formation of the Union, 
Map 3; this volume, Map i (Epoch Maps, 6, 8); MacCoun's His- 
torical Geography of the United States, series " National Growth," 
1821-1845 ; series " Development of the Commonwealth," 1830, 1840; 
Scribner's Statistical Atlas, plates i (topographical), 15, and series ix. 

General Accounts. — H. von Hoist's Constitutional and Politi- 
cal History of the United States, ii. ; James Schouler's History of 
the United States, iii., iv., chaps, xiii., xiv. ; George Tucker's History 
of the United States, iv., chaps, xxvi.-xxix.; Alexander Johnston's 
History of American Politics, chaps, xi.-xiv. ; Edward Stanwood's 
History of Presidential Elections, chaps, xii.-xiv. ; John T. Morse's 
John Quincy Adams, 226-291 ; Theodore Roosevelt's Thomas Hart 
Benton, 69-183 ; A. C. McLaughlin's Lewis Cass, 130-169 ; Andrew 
W. Young's The American Statesman, chaps, xxviii.-liv. ; Josiah 
Quincy's Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams, chaps, viii., ix, ; 
Henry A. Wise's Seven Decades of the Union, chaps, vi., vii. ; Chan- 
ning's Student's History of the United States, §§ 271-294 ; Larned's 
History for Ready Reference. 

Special Histories, — Carl Schurz's Henry Clay, i. 311-3S3, 
ii. 1-127 ; W. G. Sumner's Andrew Jackson, 119-386; Ormsby's 
History of the Whig Party ; Olmsted's Cotton Kingdom ; Hammond's 
History of Political Parties ; Holmes's Parties and their Principles ; 



1829.] Bibliography. 23 

Byrdsall's History of the Loco-foco, or Equal Rights, Party ; F. W. 
Taussig's Tariff History of the United States ; W. G. Sumner's 
History of American Currency; James Parton's Life of Andrew 
Jackson ; H. von Hoist's Calhoun, 62-183 ; E. V. Shepard's Martin 
Van Buren ; G. T. Curtis's Life of Webster ; H. C. Lodge's Daniel 
Webster ; R. T. Ely's Labor Movement in America. 

Contemporary Accounts. — John Quincy Adams's Memoirs, 
vii.-ix. (chaps, xv.-xviii.) ; Thomas H. Benton's Thirty Years' View, i. ; 
Amos Kendall's Autobiography, and Life of Jackson ; Martin Van 
Buren's Origin of Political Parties in the United States ; Nathan 
Sargent's Public Men and Events, i., chaps, iii., iv. ; ChevaHer's 
Society, Manners, and Politics in the United States ; Harriet Mar- 
tineau's Society in America ; Josiah Quincy's Figures of the Past ; 
Daniel Webster's Correspondence ; Private Correspondence of Henry 
Clay; J. A.Hamilton's Reminiscences; Ben: Perley Poore's Perley's 
Reminiscences, i. 88-19S ; Alexander Johnston's Representative 
American Orations, ii. ; Garrisons' William Lloyd Garrison, i. ; 
H. McCuUoch's Men and Measures of Half a Century. 



CHAPTER II. 

PARTY SPIRIT AND POLICY UNDER JACKSON 
(1829-1833). 

12. The New President (1829). 

The character of Jackson created everywhere its own 
environment, bred everywhere conditions suitable to it- 
Jackson's Self and its own singular, self-willed existence, 
character. j|- ^^g ^^ simple and invariable in its opera- 
tions as a law of nature. He was wholly a product of 
frontier life. Born in one of the least developed dis- 
tricts of North Carolina, of humble Scotch-Irish parents 
but just come from County Antrim he had in early man- 
hood gone to the still more primitive settlements of that 
Western District of North Carolina which was presently 
to become the State of Tennessee. As a boy he had 
almost no instruction even in the elements of an edu- 



24 Period of Critical Change. [§§ 12-14, 

cation ; had been obliged to eke out a shabby livelihood 
by saddle-making and work in the fields ; had preferred 
horse-racing, cock-fighting, rough jests, and all rude and 
heedless sport to steady labor ; and then had gone into 
the West, with a little knowledge of the law such as all 
young men who meant to get on in the world were then 
used to pick up, to assist in the administration of justice 
in the boisterous communities beyond the mountains. He 
Jackson's Speedily commended himself to his new neigh- 
public ex- bors for leading parts in their common life, 
penence. j^^ became a member of the convention which 
framed the first constitution of Tennessee, and was that 
State's first representative in the Federal House. He 
was afterwards for a short time in the Senate. He was 
even made a member of the Supreme Court of his State. 
More appropriately, he was chosen major-general of mili- 
tia. Offices fell to him, not because of his ambition, but 
rather because the imperative qualities of his character 
thrust him forward as a natural leader of men. He was 
in every way a type of the headstrong, aggressive, insub- 
ordinate, and yet honest and healthy, democracy to which 
he belonged. He found his proper role^ at last, in the 
war with the Creek Indians and in the war with England, 
which followed. He hated the Indian and the English- 
man, and he loved to fight. At forty-seven he had re- 
pulsed the British at New Orleans, and won a military 
reputation which was to gain for him no less a prize than 
the Presidency. 

13. New Political Forces (1829). 

Such were the origin and nurture of the character 
which was to dominate the politics of the country from 
1829 to 1837, — one of the most important and critical 
periods in the history of the government. It is necessary 
to know the man in order to understand the politics of 



1829.J Jackson's Time and Type. 25 

the time : a man of the type of Daniel Boone, John 
Sevier, and Sam Houston ; cast in the mould of the men 
of daring, sagacity, and resource, who were winning the 
western wilderness for civilization, but who were them- 
selves impatient of the very forces of order and authority 
in whose interest they were hewing roads and m.aking 
" clearings." Such a man naturally stands forward in 
the development of a new and democratic 

The West. 

nation. He impersonated the agencies which 
were to nationalize the government. Those agencies 
may be summarily indicated in two words, " the West." 
They were agencies of ardor and muscle, without seDsi- 
bility or caution. Timid people might well look at them 
askance. They undoubtedly racked the nicely adjusted 
framework of the government almost to the point of 
breaking. No wonder that conservative people were 
alienated who had never before seen things done so 
strenuously or passionately. But they were forces of 
health, hasty because young, possessing the sound but 
unsensitive conscience which belongs to those who are 
always confident in action. 

14. Causes of Jackson's Success (1829-1837). 
Our democracy has not by becoming big lost the 
characteristic democratic temperament. That is a tem- 
^, . perament of hopefulness, but it is also a tem- 

1 he sections. p . . ,t_, ~ , . „ _ 

perament of suspicion. The South, in 1828, 
saw the tariff policy of the party of the East forcing 
her agricultural interests more and more into a posi- 
tion of disadvantage, and feared other aggressions still 
more serious. The West was tired of the " artificial sys- 
tem of cabinet succession to the presidency," which 
seemed to be keeping the greatest of the national offices 
in the hands of a coterie of eastern statesmen. The 
whole country had grown jealous of the control of presi- 



26 Period of Ci'itical Change. [§§ 14, 15. 

dential nominations which Congress had for long exer- 
cised through its party caucuses. It seemed to many as 
if national politics were getting into ruts, and as if those 
who had long been prominent in affairs were coming to 
Political im- regard the management of the offices as a 
patience. private cult, necessitating the choice only of 
the initiated by the people. " If a link in the chain of 
successive secretary dynasties be not broken now," said 
the Pennsylvania convention which nominated Jackson 
in 1824, " then may we be fettered by it forever." It was 
even suspected that the group of public men for whom 
the great offices were always reserved were harboring 
corruption as well as the pride and exclusiveness of 
power. Perhaps some man sent out from the '' bosom 
of the people," without taint of the politician's trade, 
might discover many things amiss, and set all things 
right. It was not a campaign of reason, it was a cam- 
paign of feeling, summed up in an " Hurrah for Jackson." 
It was easier for the mass of the people to cheer for this 
man, whose character seemed evident, and dignified by a 
fresh and open sincerity, than for any one of the accom- 
plished gentlemen, his opponents, who had been so long 
before the country. It was hoped, by electing Jackson, 
to effect a gentle revolution. 

15. Appointments to Office (1829, 1830). 

And indeed many phenomena of radical change were at 
once visible at the seat of government when he had taken 
Altered the oath of office. The whole country per- 

condiiions. ceivcd them, and seemed to feel 'the thrill and 
consciousness of altered conditions. It had felt the hand 
of western men before this, but differently. Clay had 
brought with him into politics an imagination for great 
schemes, an ardor for progress on the great scale, a 



1829, 1830] Appointments to Office. 27 

quick sympathy with the plainer sort of strong, sagacious 
men, and a personal force of initiative which marked him 
from the first as a man bred among those who were wrest- 
ing; the continent from Nature for their own uses. Ben- 
ton, too, was on every point of political doctrine clearly a 
man of the West. But Clay acquired a pohtic habit of 
compromise, and Benton studied classical models of style 
and conduct. Neither of them had the direct and terrible ^ 
energy or the intense narrowness of Jackson. Jackson's 
election was the people's revolution ; and he brought the 
people to Washington with him. Those who were known 
to speak for him had said that, whatever his policy in 
other respects, it might confidently be expected that he 
would " reward his friends and punish his enemies." For 
Office- the first time in the history of the country, 

seeking. Washington swarmed with office-seekers. It 
was beheved that the people had at last inherited the gov- 
ernment, and they had come to enter into possession. Not 
only those who sought appointment to the better sort of 
offices came, but the politically covetous of every degree. 
Jackson saw to it that they got all that there was to give. 
For the old office-holders there set in a veritable reign of 
terror. Official faithfulness and skilled capacity did not 
shield them ; long tenure was construed against them. 
The President and his lieutenants must have the offices 
for the friends who had served them in the campaign. 
The Tenure of Office Act, passed in 1820, facihtated the 
new policy. That Act had created a four-year term for 
a large number of offices which had before that time been 
held by an indefinite tenure of good behavior. Monroe 
and Adams had not taken advantage of it ; they had sim- 
ply reappointed such officers as had not proved unfaithful. 
But it smoothed the way for the new methods of appoint- 
ment introduced by Jackson. It made removals in many 
cases unnecessary : offices fell vacant of themselves. 



2S Period of Critical Change. [§ i6. 

16. Jackson's Advisers (1829, 1830). 

The result was, of course, an almost entirely new civil 
service, made up of men without experience, and inter- 
ested only in the political side of their new profession. 
The new discipline, too, was in the hands of new captains. 
In choosing his cabinet officers, Jackson did not alto- 
gether depart from custom. The men he selected were, it 
is true, with but one exception, inconspicuous 
and without the usual title to high office ; but 
they had at any rate all been members of Congress, and 
engaged in national affairs. Martin Van Buren, who had 
but a few months before been elected governor of New 
York, was made Secretary of State, and though a politi- 
cian of the new order of managers, rather than of the old 
order of statesmen, possessed talents not unworthy of the 
place. John H. Eaton of Tennessee was made Secretary 
of War because he was a personal friend of Jackson's. 
The Secretaries of the Treasury and of the Navy and the 
Attorney-General owed their preferment to the fact that 
they were friends of Calhoun, the Vice-President, who 
was the leader of the Southern contingent of the Jackson 
forces. The Postmaster-General had recently been a 
candidate for the governorship of Kentucky, in the Jack- 
son interest, and had been defeated by the candidate of 
the party of Clay. 

It was of little significance, however, as it turned out, 
who held these offices. Jackson was intimate with Eaton, 
and came more and more to confide in Van Buren ; 
"Kitchen but he souglit advice for the most part out- 
Cabinet." gj(;jg |-]^g cabinet. Jackson was never afraid 
of responsibility, and never had any respect for custom. 
He therefore took whom he pleased into his confidence, 
ridding himself without a touch of compunction of the 
cabinet meetings which most of his predecessors had felt 



1829, 1830.] Jackson's Advisers. 29 

it their duty to hold. Instead of confiding in his "con- 
stitutional advisers," he drew about him a body of men 
which the press of the day dubbed his " Kitchen Cab- 
inet." By far the most able members of this group were 
William B. Lewis, Jackson's relative and neighbor, and 
now for twelve years or more his confidential friend and 
political coach and manager, and Amos Kendall, a politi- 
cal soldier of fortune. Lewis was a born manager of 
men, a master of the difficult dramatic art of creating " sit- 
uations " useful to his friends. Kendall had the intellec- 
tual gifts and the literary style which fitted him for 
writing the higher kind of state-papers ; the pity of it was 
that he had also the taste and talent for supplying the 
baser sort of writing necessary for the effective editing of 
partisan newspapers. These private advisers, whatever 
may have been their individual virtues, were gotten to- 
gether to effect that combination between national policy 
and party management which has ever since been the 
bane and reproach of American politics. 

No wonder political leaders of the old stamp were 
alarmed. It must have seemed as if the foundations of 
^. , political morals had broken away; as if the 

Disharmony ^ -' ' 

in the gov- whole character of the government were threat- 
ernmeut. gnetj ^NxXh sinister change. The President's 
frontier mind made a personal matter of all opposition to 
him. Congress and the President had hitherto acted 
together as co-operative parts of an harmoniously integra- 
ted system of government; there had seldom been more 
than the inevitable and desirable friction between those 
who supported and those who opposed the measures of 
the administration. Until John Quincy Adams became 
President, Congress had even allowed its business to be 
shaped in most matters by the suggestions of the Execu- 
tive. But since parties had divided upon lines of personal 
rivalry in the campaign of 1824, affairs had worn a much 



30 Period of Critical Change. [§§ i6, 17. 

altered complexion ; and the election of Jackson to the 
presidency seemed to make the change permanent. It 
began to be felt, by those who opposed him, that party 
struggles for the future affected, not so much measures, 
as the very structure of the government. 

17. The " Spoils System " (1829,1830). 

It was in such an atmosphere and under such circum- 
stances that the business of the country was resumed by 
the Twenty-first Congress on December 7, 
aronage. jg2g. The nine months which had elapsed 
since Jackson's inauguration had disclosed many evi- 
dences of what the new administration was to be, and 
the Houses came together in an anxious frame of mind, 
conscious that there were delicate questions to be handled. 
The radical reconstruction of the civil service in the 
interest of those who had actively supported Jackson for 
the presidency had startled and repelled not a few even 
of the Jackson men ; for many of these had chosen to 
believe that their chief was to represent a conservative 
constitutional policy ; had refused to see that he was not 
a politician at all, but only an imperative person whose 
conduct it would always be difficult either to foresee or 
control. It was estimated that when Congress met, more 
than a thousand removals from office had 

Removals. ii.ii . , 

already taken place, as agamst seventy-three 
at most for all previous administrations put together; 
and John Quincy Adams uttered a very common judg- 
ment when he wrote in his Journal : *' Very few repu- 
table appointments have been made, and those confined 
to persons who were indispensably necessary to the 
office." " The appointments are exclusively of violent 
partisans," he declares, " and every editor of a scurrilous 
and slanderous newspaper is provided for." " The ad- 
ministration," exclaimed Webster, when the whole scope 



1829,1830.] The ^^ Spoils System !' 31 

and significance of the new system of appointment had 
been disclosed, " the administration has seized into its 
own hands a patronage most pernicious and corrupting, 
an authority over men's means of living most tyrannical 
and odious, and a power to punish free men for political 
opinions altogether intolerable." 

A good deal of solicitude had once and again found 
expression concerning executive patronage, especially of 
_ . . . , late years, as the number of Federal offices ran 

Crisis in the , . , i i . i . , i •. , 

public ser- higner and higher into the thousanas ; but 
^"^^' the fears that had been felt had seemed idle 

and exaggerated in the presence of the steady conserva- 
tism and integrity of the Presidents hitherto in the ex- 
ercise of their removing power. Now, at length, how- 
ever, the abuses that had been dreaded had come. " We 
give no reasons for our removals," said Van Buren ; but 
the reasons were generally plain enough. Friends were 
to be rewarded, enemies punished ; and inasmuch as the 
number of needy friends greatly exceeded the number of 
avowed enemies to be found in office, even those who 
could not be shown to deserve punishment were removed, 
to provide places for those who were deemed to deserve 
reward. The Senate rejected some of the worst names 
submitted to it ; it cast anxiously about for some means 
of defeating the unprecedented schemes of the Presi- 
dent ; but all to no avail. Its resistance only exasper- 
ated Jackson ; there were even alarming indications that 
the President gained in popularity almost in direct pro- 
portion to the vigor and stubbornness with which he 
stood out against the Senate in the assertion of what he 
deemed the prerogatives of his office. 

The President's first message to Congress showed a 
consciousness that some explanation was due to the 
country ; but the explanation offered was very vague. It 
asserted the corrupting influence of long terms of office, 



32 Period of Critical Change* [§§ 17, 18= 

and denied that any one ever acquired a right to an office 
by holding it ; but it did not attempt to show that long 
. tenure had actually corrupted those who had 
dent's rea- been removed, or that those v/ho had been 
^°"^" substituted had the necessary title of capacity. 

Probably Jackson was not personally responsible for 
the choice of unworthy men. He asserted just before 
his death, indeed, that he had himself made only one 
removal of a subordinate official " by an act of direct 
personal authority." There can be no question that he 
thought that many of those in office at his advent were 
dishonest; and no one who understands his character 
can doubt that he wished trustworthy men to be put in 
their places. But it was impossible to appoint so many 
without mistakes, — impossible to make appointments at 
all upon the ground of personal or party allegiance without 
an almost unbroken series of mistakes. 

18. Eesponsibility for the System (1829, 1830). 

It is possible now to assign the responsibility for the 
introduction of these pernicious practices into national 
Jackson's politics quite definitely. Unquestionably it 
advisers. must rcst upon those who advised Jackson, 
rather than upon Jackson himself. Jackson loved his 
friends and hated his enemies, after the hearty, straight- 
forward manner of the frontier. He was, moreover, a 
soldier, and a soldier whose knowledge of war and disci- 
pline had been acquired in the rough border warfare in 
which the cohesion of comradeship and personal devo- 
tion is more effective than the drill and orderly obedience 
of regular troops. Temperament and experience alike 
explain his declaration, " I am no politician ; but if I were 
one, I would be a New York politician." New York 
pohtics had produced that system of party organization 
whose chief instrument was the nominating convention. 



11^29, 1830.] Resp07isibility for the System. 33 

made up of delegates selected, in caucus, by local politi- 
cal managers, and organized to carry out the plans of a 
coterie of leaders at the State capital (Formation of the 
Union, § 131). This coterie was known in New York as 
The Albany the "Albany Regency," and its guiding spirit 
Regency. ^y^g Martin Van Buren, whom Jackson had 
called from the governor's chair to be Secretary of State 
and his trusted personal friend and adviser. The sys- 
tem which Mr. Van Buren represented had come to com- 
pletion with the extension of the suffrage. A great mass 
of voters, unable of themselves to act in concert or with 
intelligent and independent judgment, might by careful 
management and a watchful sagacity be organized in the 
interest of those who wished to control the offices and 
policy of the State. Neither the idea nor the practice 
was confined to New York. Pennsylvania also had 
attained to almost as great perfection in such matters. 

The means by which the leading coteries of politicians 
in these States controlled the action of caucuses and con- 
Means of ventious were not always or necessarily cor- 
management. j-upt. It is probable, indeed, that in the youth 
of these party organizations actually corrupt practices 
were uncommon. The offices of the State government 
were used, it is true, as prizes to be given to those who 
had rendered faithful party service, in due submission to 
those in command ; and there were pecuniary rewards to 
be had, too, in the shape of lucrative contracts for public 
works or the State's printing. But very honorable men 
were to be found acting as masters of the new manage- 
ment. " When they are contending for victory," said 
Mr. Marcy in the Senate, speaking of the group of New 
York politicians to which he himself belonged, "they 
avow the intention of enjoying the fruits of it. If 
they are defeated, they expect to retire from office. If 
they are successful, they claim, as a matter of right, the 

3 



34 Period of Critical Change. [§§ 18-20. 

advantages of success. They see nothing wrong in the 
rule that to the victors belong the spoils of the enemy." 
There was nothing consciously sinister in this avowal. It 
was, on the contrary, the language of an upright, if not a 
very wise, man; and it contained a creed which Jackson 
accepted at once, by natural instinct, without perceiving 
either the demoralizing or the corrupt meaning of it. He 
loved men who would stand together in hearty loyalty, 
shoulder to shoulder, and submit to disciphne. He 
believed that it was right to see to it that every public 
servant, of whatever grade of the service, adhered to the 
right men and held to the right political opinions. He 
put himself in the hands, therefore, of the new order of 
pohticians, some of whom had views and purposes which 
he was too honest- and upright to perceive. It was thus 
unwittingly that he debauched national politics. 

19. The Democratic Programme (1829). 

The question of appointment to office was not the only 
question which was given a new aspect by the policy of 
Jackson's the ucw administration. The President's first 
policy. message to Congress was full of important 

matter aggressively put forward. It was in almost every 
point clear, straightforward, explicit ; and it subsequently 
turned out to have been meant as a serious programme, 
marking lines of policy which the President was to pursue 
resolutely — stubbornly when necessary — to the end. 
It gave warning that the President doubted the constitu- 
tionality of the charter of the Bank of the United States, 
which everybody supposed had been finally established 
by the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of 
McCiilloch vs. Maryland [V oxrVi2X\ovLQi the Union, § 125) ; 
and thus foreshadowed his purpose to lay inexperienced 
hands on the finances of the country. It bespoke his 



1829.]' The Democratic Programme. 35 

purpose to rid the States of their Indian population. It 
declared also, very impressively, his respect for the inde- 
pendent powers of the States under the Constitution, and 
his opinion that the surplus revenue about to accrue to 
the national treasury ought to be turned into their several 
exchequers, rather than spent by Congress upon internal 
improvements under a doubtful interp relation of the Con- 
stitution. It assumed a firm and dignified attitude towards 
foreign affairs, which promised gratifying results. Only 
Popular o^ ^^^ tariff did it speak with uncertain 

support. sound. It was a characteristic document. 

Its hostility to the Bank reflected a popular sentiment 
and a political instinct with which the friends of the Bank 
had not sufficiently reckoned hitherto. Its desire that 
the surplus funds of the federal government should be 
distributed among the States had a touch of the same 
meaning. Its utterance concerning the policy of the 
government towards the Indians gave voice to Jackson's 
ovvfn feeling about the relative rights of white men and red 
in the border States, and betokened that he would be no 
less effective an opponent of the Indian as President than 
he had been as commander in the Creek and Seminole 
wars. Its language touching foreign affairs spoke the 
military confidence and the bold patriotism of the old 
soldier. 

20. The Indian Question (1802-1838). 

All frontiersmen loved autonomy in local government, 
and were by instinct " states-rights " men ; and of none was 
this truer than of the men of Kentucky and 
' Tennessee. When the federal government 
had hesitated about purchasing Louisiana, and thus gain- 
ing control of the Mississippi, they had threatened to 
break away from their allegiance and take independent 
action. They had been impatient of the slackness and 



36 Period of Critical Change. [§ 20. 

delays of tha authorities in Washington when their lives 
and property were in jeopardy because of the Indians, and 
the wars with the southwestern tribes had been largely 
of their own undertaking. The Southerners who had 
supported Jackson for the presidency were not mistaken, 
therefore, when they reckoned the Tennessee general a 
friend of the powers of the States, though it was danger- 
ous, as it turned out, to presume too far upon his sympa- 
thies in this regard while he was himself at the head of 
the federal government. To resist the federal authority 
was then to resist Jackson himself, and the instinct of 
masterful authority in him was stronger than the instinct 
of "states-rights." 

In Georgia the Indian question had just passed one 
sharp crisis (Formation of the Union, § 137) when Jackson 
Geor-^ia Came to the presidency, and was entering 

Indians. upon a secoud and final crisis. The State had 

again and again demanded that the federal authorities 
should take action in the matter, in fulfilment of their 
promise of 1802, that the Indian titles should be ex 
tinguished as soon as possible ; but the Indians had 
steadily refused to treat. The State authorities had 
grown impatient; had violated the treaty rights of the 
Indians ; had even threatened to defy federal authority 
and drive the red men out at all hazards. Finally, fed- 
eral commissioners had obtained the Georgian lands of 
the Creeks, in 1826, probably by bribing the chiefs of the 
tribe, and Congress had provided a new place of settle- 
ment for them beyond the Mississippi. 

But the Cherokees remained, and it was a much more 
serious inconvenience to Georgia to have the Cherokees 
remain than it would have been to fail to get 
rid of the Creeks. There were more than 
thirteen thousand Cherokees in the State. They occu- 
pied an extensive and very fertile region in the northwest 



1813-1S32.] The Georgia Indians. 37 

portion of her territory; they had acquired a degree of 
civilization and of ordered self-government which ren- 
dered it impossible to deal with them as with savages ; 
every circumstance threatened to fix them as a permanent 
independent community within the State. The Geor- 
gians were very naturally determined that nothing of the 
sort should take place. So soon as it was known that 
Jackson had been elected President, an Act was passed by 
the Georgia Legislature extending the laws of the State 
over the Cherokee territory, and dividing that territory into 
counties. In 1829 Alabama followed suit. Jackson ap- 
proved. " I informed the Indians inhabiting parts of 
Jackson's Georgia and Alabama," he told Congress in 
attitude. j^js f^j-g^- message, "that their attempt to estab- 
lish an independent government would not be coun- 
tenanced by the Executive of the United States, and 
advised them to migrate beyond the Mississippi or to 
submit to the laws of those States." When the governor 
of Georgia requested him to withdraw the federal troops 
which had been sent down to protect the Indians, he com- 
plied. In 1830 Congress passed an Act to encourage 
and assist the Indians to remove beyond the Mississippi. 
Three several times between the opening of the year 1830 
and the close of the year 1832 were the claims of the 
Indians taken by appeal from the Georgia courts to the 
Supreme Court of the United States, and as often did 
that court decide in favor of the Indians as claimants 
under treaties with the United States ; but the Executive 
declined to enforce its judgments. The last appeal that 
was taken having been decided in 1832, when a new 
presidential election was at hand, Jackson declared that 
he would leave the decision as to the legality of his con- 
duct in this matter to the people, thus making bold 
avowal of his extraordinary constitutional theory, that 
a vote of the people must override the action of all con- 



38 Period of Ci'itical Change. [§§ 20-22. 

stituted authorities when it could be construed to approve 
what they had condemned. In 1834 an Indian Territory- 
was roughly defined by Act of Congress beyond the Mis- 
sissippi. By 1838 the Indians were almost wholly driven 
from the Gulf States. 

Jackson had, it should be remembered, in his message 
of December, 1829, taken his stand upon the Constitution 
A point in regard to this question. Those who would 

of law. judge for themselves between Georgia and the 

Cherokees must resolve this point of law : if the power 
of the federal executive to negotiate treaties be added to 
the power of Congress to regulate commerce with the 
Indian tribes, do they together furnish a sanction for the 
erection of a permanent independent state within the terri- 
tory of one of the members of the Union, and so override 
that other provision of the Constitution which declares that 
"no new State shall be formed or erected within the juris- 
diction of any other State " without the express consent 
of the Legislature of that State and of Congress ? Judg- 
ment was passed upon the law of the case by the Supreme 
Court, and Jackson should unquestionably have yielded 
obedience to that judgment; but the point of law is a 
nice one. 

21. Internal Improvements (1829-1837). 

In the matter of internal improvements (Formation of 
the Union, § 136) Jackson gave early and frequent proof 
Jackson's that he was in favor of a strict construction of 
position. ^i^g Constitution and a scrupulous regard for 
the separate powers of the States. He declared his pur- 
pose to stand upon the constitutional principles that had 
governed Madison and Monroe in this question, — upon 
the ground, namely, that no expenditure by the federal 
government was legitimate which was not made for an 
object clearly national in character ; and that, inasmuch 



1829-1837.] Internal Improvements. 39 

as it must always be very difficult to determine whether 
the public works which the United States was constantly 
being urged to undertake were really of national import- 
ance, it was best to be exceedingly chary of agreeing to 
such outlays. He had urged in his first message the 
very great importance of the functions of the-^States in 
the national system of government, and had solemnly 
warned Congress " against all encroachments upon the 
legitimate sphere of state sovereignty." He had in this 
way given emphasis to his proposal that instead of ap- 
plying the surplus revenue of the federal government by 
the vote of Congress to the construction of public works, 
it should be distributed among the States, to be em- 
ployed at their discretion. And this continued to be his 
attitude throughout the years of his presidency. The 
appropriations made by Congress for internal improve- 
ments during those years were large, but they 
were not made by distinct Acts of appropria- 
tion for that specific purpose. They were made as items 
in the general Appropriation Bills, which the President 
must have vetoed as a whole in order to reach the ob- 
noxious items. It was only thus that the President's 
opposition to such expenditures could be thwarted. 

22. Sectional Divergence. 

John Quincy Adams had been while President an out- 
spoken and even urgent advocate of national expendi- 
Division un- tures for internal improvements, a firm sup- 
der Adams, porter of the treaty rights of the Indians in 
the Gulf States, and an avowed friend of the system of 
protective tariffs ; and his position upon these questions 
had completely alienated the South from him. In 1824 
he had received some support in the South for the presi- 
dency ; but in 1828 he had received practically none at all 



40 Period of Critical Change. [§§ 22, 23. 

outside of Maryland. All of the southern votes which 
had been cast for Crawford or Clay in the election of 
Jackson's i824were transferred in 1828 to Jackson; and 
attitude. j^ the matter of his treatment of the Indians 
and his attitude towards internal improvements the South 
had had no reason to repent of its choice. Jackson 
fulfilled its hopes by drawing about him a party firmly, 
consistently, even courageously devoted to the principle 
of strict construction in the interpretation of the constitu- 
tional powers of the federal government, and the South 
had good reason to be satisfied with the local autonomy 
thus secured to it. 

But there were influences afoot which were to force 

sectional divergences, nevertheless. The tariff law of 

1828 (Formation of the Union, S 138) had 

Southern ' , , , . „' ^ ^ '^ 

commercial Committed the country to the fullest extent to 
interests, ^^ policy of Commercial restrictions in favor 
of domestic manufactures ; and such a policy could not 
but subject the South to a serious, if not fatal, economic 
loss. For her system of slavery shut her out from the 
development of manufactures. Her only hope of wealth 
lay in the maintenance of a free commerce, which should 
take her agricultural products, and, most important, her 
cotton, to any market of the world, foreign or domes- 
tic, that might offer. The era of railway construction 
was just dawning, and that era was to witness vast and 
sudden changes in the economic condition of the coun- 
try which would operate to expand and transform the 
industrial North and West speedily and upon an enor- 
mous scale, but v/hich were to affect the South scarcely 
at all. The northern and southern groups of States, al- 
ready profoundly different in life and social structure, 
were to be rendered still more radically unlike. A sharp 
and almost immediate divergence between them, both in 
interest and in opinion, was inevitable. 



1824-1830.] Sectional Divergence. 41 

23. The Public Land Question (1829, 1830). 

Jackson came to the presidency at the very moment 
when, for the first time since the Missouri debates, symp- 
Poiiticai toms of this divergence were becoming acute- 

significance. During the first session of the first Congress 
of his term a debate upon the public hind question. 
brought out in the most striking manner possible the 
antagonism already existing between the two sections. 
The public land question had two very distinct sides. 
On the one hand, it was a question of administration, of 
the management of the national property ; on the other 
hand, it was a question of politics, of the creation of new 
States and the limitation or extension of the area of set- 
tlement. From the point of view of institutions, it was 
also a question of the extension or limitation of slavery. 
It was in its latter aspect that it had provoked debate 
upon the occasion of the admission of Missouri to the 
Union; and it was in this aspect also that it called forth 
the "great debate" of 1830. That debate took place 
upon a resolution introduced by Mr. Foote of Connec- 
Foote's Re- ticut, who proposed that an official inquiry 
solution. should be instituted for the purpose of deter- 
mining the expediency of the policy of rapid sales of 
the public lands which had been pursued hitherto, and 
of ascertaining whether these sales might not, at least for 
a period, be with advantage hmited to lands already sur- 
veyed and on the market. The resolution meant that the 
eastern States, which were trying to foster a new indus- 
trial system of manufactures, were hostile to the policy of 
creating new agricultural communities in the West, at 
any rate rapidly and upon an unlimited scale. If the 
federal government continued to survey and police the 
western lands, and thus prepare them for settlement, in- 
viting all classes to purchase, the while, by means of 



42 Period of Critical Change. [§§ 23, 24. 

prices meant merely to cover the actual expenses of the 
government in making this preparation for settlement, 
not only those who had capital, but also the better part 
of the laboring classes would be constantly drawn away 
from the East, and her industrial system greatly embar- 
rassed, if not rendered impossible. What was the use of 
protective tariffs which shut out foreign competition, if 
wages were to be perpetually kept at a maximum by this 
drain of population towards the West? Here was a 
serious issue between East and West, — a serious issue 
also, as it turned out, between the eastern States and 
the South ; for in this matter the South stood with the 
West. 

It is not easy without a somewhat close scrutiny of the 

situation to perceive why this should have been the case. 

Apparently the interests of the South would not be greatly 

advanced by the rapid settlement and develop- 

Sympathy -' ^ . ^ ^ 

of South ment of the West ; for it was already evident 
and West. ^^^^ ^j^^ political interests of the South were 
inextricably bound up with the maintenance and even 
the extension of the system of slavery, and the Missouri 
Compromise had shut slavery out from the greater part 
of the Western territory. At the time of the debate on 
Foote's resolution, however, other considerations were 
predominant. The protective tariff law of 1828 had been 
taken by the South to mean that the eastern States in- 
tended, at whatever hazards of fortune to other portions 
of the Union, to control the revenue policy of the federal 
government in their own interest. When Foote intro- 
duced his resolution Benton had sprung forward to de- 
clare with hot indignation that such propositions were 
but further proof of the spirit, — a spirit now of neglect 
and again of jealousy, — which the New England States 
had always manifested towards the West. The South, 
therefore, smarting under a restrictive tariff which it 



1830.] Public Land Question. 43 

regarded as a New England measure, and the West 
chafing under the selfish jealousy which, it seemed to her, 
New England was always showing towards Western in- 
terests, it was natural that they should draw together in 
policy, as they had done in personal preferences when 
they had united to support Jackson. 



24. The Debate on Foote's Resolution (1830). 

But it is what was said in this memorable debate, 
even more than v/hat was done for the amalgamation of 
parties by the feelings which it aroused, that made it 
one of the most significant in the annals of Congress. 
It brought out, for the first time on the floor of Con- 
gress, a distinct statement of the constitutional principles 
upon which North and South were to diverge. Senator 
Senator Hayne of South Carolina, speaking for his 

Hayne. State, and, it was feared, for the South as a 

whole, plainly declared that, in case of aggressions which 
seemed deliberate, palpable, and dangerous violations of 
the rights reserved to the States under the Constitution, 
any State would be justified, when her solemn protests 
failed of effect, in resisting the efforts of the federal gov- 
ernment to put the measures complained of into execution 
within her jurisdiction. He appealed, for authority, to 
the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and 1799 
(Formation of the Union, § 90), which had seemed to 
give voice to a common sentiment when holding in their 
day similar doctrine. He claimed that the Constitution 
of the Union was a compact between the States ; that to 
make the federal government the sole judge, through its 
judiciary, of the extent of its own powers was to leave 
the States utterly without guarantee of the rights reserved 
to them, and might result in destroying the federal char- 
acter of the government altogether; and that if the 



44 Period of Critical Change. [§24. 

States could not defend themselves in cases where the 
unconstitutionality of acts of the Federal Government 
seemed to them deliberate and palpable, the government 
might be consolidated to a point of intolerable tyranny. 
To these arguments Mr. Webster replied in a speech 
full of power and of high purpose, and illu- 
Mr. e ster. j^jj^^^^^ ^y ^ chastened eloquence which ren- 
ders it worthy of being preserved among classical 
specimens of oratory. He maintained that the great 
fundamental instrument of the Union was not a compact, 
but in the fullest and strictest sense of the word a consti- 
tution, meant, not to effect an arrangement, but to found 
a government ; and that this government had been pur- 
posely equipped at all points with self-sustaining powers. 
It was not a creature of the States, but the organ of the 
nation, acting directly upon individuals, and not to be 
checked in the exercise of its powers save by such pro- 
cesses and upon such principles of law as should be sanc- 
tioned by its own Supreme Court, which the Constitution 
had itself designated as the sole interpreter of its meaning. 
It would be difficult to exaggerate the significance of 
this discussion. It was the formal opening of the great 
controversy between the North and South concerning the 
nature of the Constitution which bound them together. 
This controversy was destined to be stimulated by the sub- 
Political ira- sequent course of events to greater and greater 
portance. heat, more and more intense bitterness, until it 
should culminate in war. At its heart lay a question, the 
merits of which are now seldom explored with impartial- 
ity. Statesmanlike wisdom unquestionably spoke in the 
contention of Webster, that the Constitution had created, 
not a dissoluble, illusory partnership between the States, 
but a single federal state, complete in itself, enacting 
legislation which was the supreme law of the land, and 
dissoluble only by revolution. No other doctrine could 



1S30.] Debate on Foofs Resolution. 45 

have stood the strain of the political and economic exper- 
iment we were making. If we were not to possess the 
continent as a nation, and as a nation build up the great 
fabric of free institutions upon which we had made so 
fair a beginning, we were to fail at all points. Upon 
any other plan we should have neither wealth nor peace 
sufficient for the completion of our great task, but only 
discord and wasted resources to show for the struggle. 
It may, nevertheless, be doubted whether this was the 
doctrine upon which the Union had been founded. It 
seems impossible to deny that the argument of Hayne 
contained much more nearly the sentiment 
merits of the of 1787-89. The Virginia and Kentucky 
question. Resolutions (Formation of the Union, § 90), 
whether they spoke any purpose of actual resistance or 
not, had certainly called the federal Constitution a com- 
pact, and had declared, in language which Senator Hayne 
adopted, " that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and 
dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the 
said compact, the States, who are members thereof, have 
the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose, for arrest- 
ing the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within 
their respective limits the authorities, rights, and liberties 
appertaining to them." There are no indications that 
these Resolutions were considered treasonable at the time 
they were passed ; they do not even seem to have shocked 
the public sense of constitutional duty. Indeed, the doc- 
trine that the States had individually become sovereign 
bodies when they emerged from their condition of sub- 
jection to Great Britain as colonies, and that they had 
not lost their individual sovereignty by entering the 
Union, was a doctrine accepted almost without question, 
even by the courts, for quite thirty years after the forma- 
tion of the government. Those who worked the theory 
out to its logical consequences described the sovereignty 



46 Period of Critical Change. [§ 24. 

of the federal government as merely an emanation from 
the sovereignty of the States. Even those public men who 
Early sen- loved the Union most, yielded theoretical as- 
timents, gg^t to the Opinion that a State might legally 

withdraw from the government at her own option, and 
had only practical and patriotic objections to urge. Every 
State or group of States which had a grievance against 
the national government bethought itself of its right to 
secede. The so-called Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsyl- 
vania had been symptomatic of disunion in that quarter ; 
Virginia and Kentucky had plainly hinted at it in theii 
protests against the Alien and Sedition Laws ; and New 
England had more than once threatened it when she 
deemed the federal policy destructive of her own in- 
terests. She had doubted whether she would remain in 
the Union after the purchase of Louisiana, — a territory 
in which, she foresaw, States were to grow up which might 
care nothing for the interests of the East ; and she had 
talked of secession when the embargo of 1807 and the 
Threats of War of i8i2 had brought her commerce to a 
secession. standstill (Formation of the Union, § 115). 
" It is my deliberate opinion," Josiah Quincy of Massa- 
chusetts had said in the House of Representatives, when 
it was considering the admission of the first State from 
the great Louisiana purchase, " it is my deliberate opin- 
ion that if this bill passes, the bonds of the Union are 
virtually dissolved; that the States which compose it are 
free from their moral obligations ; and that, as it will be 
the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, to prepare 
definitely for a separation, — amicably if they can, violently 
if they must ; " and the House had seen nothing in the 
speech to warrant a formal censure. Even so late as the 
period of the Missouri Compromise, " the Union was still, 
in some respects, regarded as an experiment," and specu- 
lations about the advisability of dissolving it did not 



1789-1830.] Merits of the Question. 47 

appear to the popular mind either " politically treasonable 
or morally heinous." 

The ground which Webster took, in short, was new 
ground ; that which Hayne occupied, old ground. But 
Strength of Wcbster's positiou was one toward which the 
Webster. greater part of the nation was steadily advanc- 
ing, while Hayne's position was one which the South 
would presently stand quite alone in occupying. Condi- 
tions had changed in the North, and were to change in 
the immediate future with great and unprecedented speed ; 
but the conditions of the South, whether political or 
economic, had remained the same, and opinion had re- 
mained stationary with them. The North was now begin- 
ning to insist upon a national government; the South 
was continuing to insist upon the original understanding 
^^ „.- . of the Constitution : that was all. The right 

Nullification. ,.,^^ .. i-i, 

upon which Hayne msisted, indeed, was not 
the right of his State to secede from the Union, but the 
singular right to declare a law of the United States null 
and void by Act of her own Legislature, and remain in the 
Union while denying the validity of its statutes. There 
were many public men, even in South Carolina, who held 
such claims to be ridiculous. They believed in the right 
to secede : that seemed a perfectly logical inference from 
the accepted doctrine of state sovereignty ; but they did 
not believe in the right to disregard the laws of the Union 
without seceding : that seemed both bad logic and bad 
statesmanship. It was, in truth, a poor, half-way infer- 
ence, prompted, no doubt, by love of the Union, and gen- 
uine reluctance to withdraw from it. Those who held it, 
wished to secure their States against aggression, but did 
not wish to destroy the federal arrangement. Webster 
found httle difficulty in overwhelming the argument for 
" nullification ; " it was the argument for state sover- 
eignty, the major premise of the argument for nullifica- 



48 Period of Critical Change. C.^§ 24-2& 

tion, which he was unable to dislodge from its historical 
position. It was to be overwhelmed only by the power 
that makes and modifies constitutions, — by the force of 
national sentiment. 



25. Tariff Lcgialation (1816-1828). 

South Carolina, nevertheless, meant to put this novel 
doctrine of nullification to the test of practical experi- 
, ment. Her grievance had no immediate con- 
nection with the question of the public lands; 
it arose out of the tariff policy of the federal government. 
The question of western settlement was part of the 
economic situation as a whole; but the central question 
of that situation was the tariff ; and the latest tariff legis- 
lation had, in the opinion of Carolinians, been the worst 
Certainly the South had abundant reason to be dissatis- 
fied with the operation of protective tariffs ; and cer- 
tainly the protective tariff of 1828 was a mon- 
strosity of its kind (Formation of the Union, 
§ 138). It v;as not equitable even when judged ))y the 
standard of its own purposes; it was not so much as 
self-consistent. It was a complex of compromises, and 
bore upon its face evidences of the notorious fact that 
it was the product of a selfish contest between several 
sections of the country for an economic advantage. The 
awkward part of the situation for the southern members 
was that they had themselves been in part responsible 
for this very law, and in a way that it was very embar- 
rassing to defend. They had used their influence to fill 
the bill with as many provisions as possible that would 
be obnoxious to New England, and had then used their 
votes to prevent amendments, in order that the New 
England members might be forced to vote with them at 
the last against the adoption of the measure. They had 



:8i6-i828.] Tariff Legislatio7t. 49 

played a dangerous game for a political advantage, with 
a view to the presidential election just at hand, and they 
had lost the game ; for a sufficient number of the New 
England members voted for the bill to carry it. 

All this, however, though it embarrassed the southern 
argument against the measure, did not change the char- 
Elements of acter of the tariff law of 1828, or alter its signi- 
the struggle, ficance as an object lesson in such legislation. 
It had evidently been the result of a scramble among 
rival interests for a selfish advantage. Until 1816 the 
duties imposed upon imports had been primarily intended 
to yield a revenue to the government ; they were only 
incidentally protective. The tariff of 1816 

Actofl8l6. , , , T 1 rr t 

had been more directly meant to afford pro- 
tection to industries which had sprung up during the 
period of the embargo and the War of 181 2-14, when all 
foreign commerce was practically cut off, and domestic 
manufactures made necessary (Formation of the Union, 
§ 122). The moderate duties then imposed, however, 
had not prevented a flood of importation after the war, 
or a rapid rise in the prices of agricultural products in 
consequence of repeated failures in the European crops. 
They had not mended the vicious currency system of the 
country. They had not furnished any remedy for specu- 
lation or any specific against the results of a return of 
good crops in Europe. In 18 19, therefore, there came a 
financial crash. Public opinion insisted upon a series 
of protective measures; and the Tariff Act of 1828 was 
the culmination of the series. 



26. Effect of the Tariff upon the South (1816-1829). 

The particular provisions of these various tariff mea- 
sures were of comparatively little consequence, so far as 
the South was concerned. The Act of 1816 had had 

4 



50 Period of Critical Cha?ige. [§§ 26, 27. 

little importance for her; but when subsequent tariffs 
increased duty after duty and more and more restrained 
Southern importation, it became very evident that she 
interests. -yy^as to Suffer almost in direct proportion as 
other sections of the country gained advantage from such 
legislation. And assuredly she was making contributions 
to the wealth and commerce of the country which entitled 
her to consideration in the matter. The total value of the 
exports from the United States in 1829 was $55,700,193, 
and to this total the southern States contributed no less 
Southern than $34,072,655 in cotton, tobacco, and rice. 
exports. i^he contribution of the South appears still 

more striking if it be compared with the total value of 
agricultural exports, which was a little under $44,000,000. 
Three-fourths of the agricultural exports of the country, 
in short, came from the South; and very nearly three- 
fifths of all the exports. The value of the exports of 
manufactured articles reached only about $6,000,000. 
High duties on hemp and flax, on wool, on lead and iron, 
meant that those who contributed most to the external 
commerce of the country were to have their markets 
restricted for the benefit of those who contributed very 
little. The value of the exports of manufactured iron 
in 1829 was only $^0,^6^ ; of the exports of lead, only 
$8,417. 

Moreover, if there was reason for complaint, South 
Carolina was entitled to be spokesman for the South. 
The exports from South Carolina in 1829 
from South reached the sum of $8,175,586, — figures ex- 
Caroiina. ceeded only by the figures for New York and 
Louisiana, and, by a few thousands, by those for Massa- 
chusetts. The total value of the exports of cotton in that 
year was $26,575,311 ; that of cotton manufactured goods 
exported, only $1,258,000. It was urged, of course, that 
by stimulating domestic industries the resources of the 



1^29.] The Tariff Question. . 51 

country were being augmented and a great home market 
created for the products of the South ; but this home 
market for cotton and rice and tobacco seemed a remote 
and doubtful good to the southern planters when bal- 
anced against the great and present value of their foreign 
market. 

27. Constitutional Question of the Tariff (1829). 

It was this gross inequality in the operation of the 
tariff, this burden thrown upon a particular section from 
The South- which the other sections were exempt, that gave 
em view. emphasis to the claim of the southern leaders 
that such legislation was unconstitutional, even " deliber- 
ately and palpably " unconstitutional. The Constitution 
of the United States exphcitly bestows upon the federal 
Congress both the power to levy taxes of all kinds and the 
power to regulate commerce with foreign nations. The 
only limitation imposed is that all taxation shall be uni- 
form throughout the United States, and that its object 
shall be either to pay the debts or to provide for the 
common defence or general welfare of the country. 
Plainly it would seem to be within the right of Congress 
to regulate commerce by means of duties or imposts in 
any way that seemed to it calculated to promote the 
general welfare of the nation. At any rate, such an exer- 
cise of power on its part could certainly not be deemed 
within reason a deliberate and palpable violation of the 
Constitution. And yet to stop here is not to state the 
whole case which the South had to urge. Incidental, or 
even direct, protection of domestic industry by means 
of tariffs, it might be urged, was one thing ; but the adop- 
A system of tion of a System which notoriously bore with 
protection. j^g ^holc weight upon a single section of the 
country was quite a different thing. Such taxation was 
not uniform in its incidence, neither did it promote the 



52 Period of Critical Change. [§§27,23. 

general welfare. It might even be urged that any selec- 
tion of specific interests for protection made the constitu- 
tionality of the policy doubtful by deliberately making 
the burdens of taxation unequal. At any rate, it was not 
easy to answer such objections; a serious doubt could 
be cast upon protective tariffs by representing them as 
acts of special legislation such as the Constitution could 
not have contemplated in connection with the power of 
laying taxes. Such legislation unquestionably consti- 
tuted, so far as the South was concerned, a very substan- 
tial grievance indeed; and, like other parties with a 
grievance, the southern party fell back upon the doctrine 
of state sovereignty. 



28. Calhoun and Jackson (1818-1831). 

The real leader of the South in its action against the 
tariff policy of Congress was not Senator Hayne, but the 
Hayne's Vice-President, Calhoun. Hayne's speech 
function. upon Foot's resolution, though its brilliancy 
and force were all his own, was recognized as a manifesto 
of the group of southern statesmen who stood about 
Calhoun. Possibly it was tentative, meant to try the 
temper of Congress and of the country with regard to 
the policy which the southern men were meditating. 
Their next step was to test the feeling of Jackson. At a 
great Democratic banquet given on the 13th April, 1830, 
the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, toasts were proposed 
which smacked very strongly of state sovereignty. 
Southern spokesmen responded to them warmly; and 
then the President, who was of course the principal 
guest of the occasion, was called upon to volunteer a 
Jackson's Sentiment. He did so with characteristic di- 
toast. rectness and emphasis. His toast was, " Our 

Federal Union : it must be preserved." The South Caro- 



1830.] Calhoun and yackson, 5?, 

lina leaders had misjudged their man. General Jackson 
was in favor of a strict construction of the Constitution 
and a studied respect for the rights of the States ; but he 
had the quick executive instinct of the soldier. He both 
knew and relished his duty with regard to the laws of the 
United States. " Yes," he said to a member of Congress 
from South Carolina who had called upon him, and who 
asked him upon leaving whether he had any commands 
for his friends in South Carolina, " Yes, I have ; please 
give my compliments to my friends in your State, and 
say to them that if a single drop of blood shall be shed 
there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I 
will hang the first man I can lay my hand on engaged in 
such treasonable conduct, upon the first tree I can reach." 
The issue was made up so far as the President was con- 
cerned : the nullification party knew what to expect from 
the Executive. 

Practical test of the issue was hastened by a personal 
breach between Jackson and Calhoun. Calhoun had 
, supported Jackson for the presidency, had 
lationswith been elected Vice-President as his friend, 
Jackson. ^^^ ^^^ regarded as his natural successor 
in the presidency. But his political fortunes, as it turned 
oat, depended upon the personal favor of Jackson, whose 
individual popularity had created the new Democratic 
party ; and the intriguing rivals of Calhoun presently set 
facts before the President v/hich caused an immediate 
breach with Calhoun. Calhoun had been Secretary of 
War in Monroe's cabinet in j8i8, v/hen Jackson, in prose- 
cution of the war against the Seminole Indians, had, after 
his own thorough and arbitrary manner of conducting 
Question of a warfare, wantonly disregarded the neutral 
court-martial, j-jghts of Spain upon the Florida peninsula, and 
had, besides, hanged two British subjects whom he found 
among the Indians and suspected of inciting the tribes to 



54 Period of Critical Change, [§§ 28-30. 

hostilities against the United States. He had acted in 
direct disobedience to orders from the War Department, 
and he had embroiled the government with two neutral 
powers. When the matter was discussed in the cabinet, 
Calhoun, as Secretary of War, had naturally proposed 
that Jackson should be censured for his extraordinary 
insubordination. But the majority of his colleagues 
would not brave the universal popularity of the man, or 
impeach his motives by such an action; and Calhoun 
was directed to write the insubordinate commander an 
official letter of thanks and congratulation. In Jackson's 
mind, with its frontier standards in such matters, no 
man could be his friend and yet censure his conduct. 
The attitude of the cabinet towards his course in the 
Seminole War was a point of special sensitiveness with 
him, for he knew and resented the fact that his censure 
had been debated. In 1831 a betrayal of confidence on 
the part of another member of the cabinet of Monroe in- 
Caihoun out formed Jackson of what he had not suspected, 
of favor. ^j^g^t yi^^ Calhoun had favored, had even pro- 
posed, the censure. It was in vain that Calhoun pro- 
tested that he had, nevertheless, been Jackson's personal 
friend throughout, even while seeking to vindicate his 
own official authority as head of the War Department. 
Such a friend Jackson regarded as a traitor. The breach 
was immediate and final, and Calhoun and his friends 
were read out of the Jackson party. 

29. Beconstruction of the Cabinet (1831). 

The quarrel came opportunely for the reconstruction 
of his cabinet, which Jackson now desired on other 
,, ^ grounds, also personal in their nature. He 

Mrs. Eaton, f , ' ,^, . , . 

had not round his cabinet either harmonious 
or docile. It was not made up of those who were really 
his confidential advisers. The wives of several of the 



1831.] Reconstruction of the Cabinet. 55 

secretaries had refused social recognition to Mrs. Eaton, 
the wife of the Secretary of War, because before her 
marriage with General Eaton she had not enjoyed an 
enviable reputation ; and the President had warmly taken 
her part. It was not long since he had lost his own wife, 
whom he had loved after a tender and knightly fashion. 
Scandalous things had been said about her, too, most 
unjustly, and he was in a mood to espouse the cause of 
any woman whose name was aspersed. The officers of 
whom he wished in any case to rid himself were either un- 
able or unwilling to command the conduct of their wives 
towards Mrs. Eaton. It was therefore the more pleasant 
to dismiss them, Calhoun men and all, and make up his 
A new cabinet afresh. Van Buren and Eaton with- 

cabinet. drew, to facilitate the process, and during the 

spring and summer of 1831 the cabinet places were filled 
with men who were the real forces of the Jackson party: 
Edward Livingston of Louisiana (Department of State), 
Louis McLane of Delaware (Treasury), Lewis Cass of 
Michigan (War), Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire 
(Navy), and Roger B. Taney of Maryland (Attorney- 
General). Only Barry of the Post Office was retained. 
The administration was now organically whole. 

30. South Carolina's Protests against the Tariff (1828-1832). 

But Calhoun and his friends were at the same time 
freed from entangling alliances, and left at liberty to pur- 
Calhoun's ^^^ their own course without party responsi- 
motives. bility. It seemed to men of that day who 
were watching with suspicion and alarm the movements 
of the South Carolina party that Calhoun and his friends 
were hatching a deliberate conspiracy against the Union*, 
but now that the whole of the careers of the men con- 
cerned, and the entire history of the measures taken, are 



56 Period of Critical Change. [§ 30. 

open to scrutiny, it is impossible to justify so harsh a 
judgment. Men's lives offer strange paradoxes and con- 
tradictions, and it is evident now that the most urgent 
sentiment of Calhoun's heart was love for the Union, in 
1 83 1 when he was advocating nullification, no less than 
in his earlier days in Congress, when he was throwing his 
whole soul into every project that was liberal and national. 
But in his mind the Union meant state sovereignty no 
less than it meant national expansion and united power. 
His devotion was reserved for the original ideal, as he 
conceived it ; for a Union of free States, not a national 
government set over subject States. He thought to pre- 
serve the Union by checking a course of events which 
threatened, as it seemed to him, to pervert it from its 
original and better plan. If he loses his early liberality 
of view as his years advance, if he grows stern and turns 
bitter in his moods, if he draws away from questions of 
national politics to devote himself wholly to the promo- 
tion of sectional objects, it is the more pathetic. His 
career may be pronounced tragical, but it cannot justly 
be pronounced false. He meant to the last to save the 
Union, and he died as if with a broken heart when it 
became evident, even to himself, that he could not save 
it by the means he had chosen and had deemed right. 
Webster had certainly been able to prove the doctrine 
of nullification — the paradoxical doctrine of peaceful 
and legal disobedience to the law — an absurd and mis- 
chievous tenet. It was indeed a desperate and perverse 
remedy ; but it was not dishonestly used by those who 
proposed it. 

In the summer of 1828 Calhoun prepared a careful and 
elaborate statement of "the theory of nullification for the 
The " Ex- ^se of the Legislature of South Carolina, which 
position." presently adopted and promulgated it as an 
official manifesto. It became known as the " South Caro- 



1828-1831] Protests against the Tariff. 57 

lina Exposition." It explains the whole attitude of Cal- 
houn and his friends in the most explicit terms, and in 
terms of evident sincerity. It declares, what was only 
too true, that there is a permanent dissimilarity of interest 
between the South and the rest of the Union, because 
the southern States are "staple States," exclusively de- 
voted to agriculture, and destined always to remain so 
because of their "soil, climate, habits, and peculiar labor," 
while the other States of the Union may diversify their 
industry and their resources as they please. The southern 
States, in other words, were in the position of a minority, 
whose advantage could never v/holiy coincide with the 
advantage of the majority in respect of the commercial 
policy of the country. Under such circumstances, the 
" Exposition " argued, Congress should be the more care- 
ful, the more punctilious, to keep strictly within the plain 
letter of its constitutional powers. And if it should seem 
to one of the States of the minority that those powers 
were evidently exceeded in any case, it must be within 
her privilege to veto the legislation in question, and so 
Suspension Suspend its operation so far as she herself 
of the tariff, -yya^g concerned until an amendment to the 
federal Constitution, specifically granting the power dis- 
puted, should have been prepared and accepted by three- 
fourths of the States. It was nevertheless pronounced 
by the " Exposition " to be inexpedient to adopt such 
measures of suspension at once ; time ought to be al- 
lowed for "further consideration and reflection, in the 
hope that a returning sense. of justice on the part of the 
majority, when they came to reflect on the wrongs which 
this and the other staple States have suffered and are 
suffering, may repeal the obnoxious and unconstitutional 
Acts, and thereby prevent the necessity of interposing 
the veto of the State ; " especially since it was hoped 
that the " great political revolution " which was to dis- 



58 Period of Critical Change, [§§30,31. 

place the Adams administration on the following 4th of 
March, and "bring in an eminent citizen, distinguished 
for his services to the country and his justice and patri- 
otism," might be " followed up, under his influence, with 
a complete restoration of the pure principles of our gov- 
ernment." When Jackson's words at the Jefferson ban- 
quet made it plain that the nullification movement could 
count upon no sympathy from him, Calhoun prepared 
and published in one of the newspapers of his State 
Calhoun's "An Addrcss to the People of South Caro- 
" Address." li^a," dated from Fort Hill, his South Caro- 
lina home, July 26, 183 1, in which he re-argued the matter 
of the " Exposition." He dwelt again upon the great 
dissimilarity and even contrariety of interests which 
existed between the different parts of the country; he 
again interpreted the Constitution as being meant to es- 
tablish an equihbrium of powers between the state and 
federal governments, — a delicate poise of interests very 
difficult to maintain ; and he spoke with greater boldness 
than before of the remedy of nullification. Deep feel- 
ings were excited in South Carohna and throughout the 
South ; there were many ominous signs of grave discon- 
tent ; there were even unmistakable signs thajt nullifica- 
tion was actually to be tried, unless Congress should take 
steps to remove the tariff grievance. 

Almost the entire attention of Congress, therefore, was 
given to the tariff question during the session of 1831-1832. 
Tariff Act It was not difHcult to make sentiment in favor 
of 1832. Qf changing the tariff law of 1828 : it was very 

generally admitted to be a " tariff of abominations," by 
reason of its method without principle, its miscellaneous 
protecting, without regard to any consistent principle of 
protection. There had been protests against it in the 
North as well as in the South. Accordingly, in July, 
1832, a new tariff measure, passed by very large major- 



1831, 1832] Argument for Nullification. 59 

ities, became law. It did away with almost all the 
" abominations " of the law of 1828. Taken as a whole, 
it may be said to have sought to effect, substantially, a 
return to the tariff of 1824. It maintained the prin- 
ciple of protection, but abandoned previous vagaries ia 
applying it. It was to go into effect March 3, 1833. 



31. Nullification (1832). 

It was to the principle of protection, however, rather 
than to any particular applications of it that the South 
Continued objected. The revision of 1832 showed that 
opposition. ^]^g majority in Congress were willing to see 
the policy of protection temperately and reasonably em- 
ployed, but did not give any promise that they would 
ever consent to abandon it. It rather fixed the policy 
upon a firmer basis by ridding it of its extravagances. 
Calhoun immediately took steps to prevent its going into 
operation. He wrote an elaborate letter to James Hamil- 
Caihoun's ton, the governor of South Carolina, dated 
position. Yq>x\. Hill, August 28, 1832, again setting forth 

his views on the right of the State to defend her reserved 
powers against the encroachments of the general govern- 
ment. Once more he stated, with consummate clear- 
ness and force, the historical argument for state sover- 
eignty. He maintained that the central government was 
the agent of the States ; that the people of each State 
were obliged to obey the laws of the Union because their 
State in joining the Union had estabhshed their obliga- 
tion to do so ; but that, as each State had established 
this obligation for its citizens, it could also declare its ex- 
tent so far as they were concerned, and that such a dec- 
laration would be as binding upon them as the original 
Act of adherence to the Union. He argued that a decla- 
ration on the part of the State defining the extent of its 



60 Period of Critical Change. [§31. 

obligation under the Constitution which it had accepted, 
might be made by a convention of the people ; that such 
a declaration would be similar to the Act by which the 
State had entered the Union, of like solemnity, and as 
much a part of her fundamental law; and he could find 
nothing in the Constitution which could warrant the fed- 
eral government in coercing a State for any purpose 
Nullification or in any manner whatever. Nullification, he 
not secession, insisted, was not, as some contended, the 
same thing as secession. " Secession is a withdrawal 
from the Union, ... a dissolution of the partnership ; " 
" nullification, on the contrary, presupposes the relation 
of principal and agent, . . . and is simply a declara- 
tion, made in due form, that an act of the agent tran- 
scending his power is null and void." He thought the 
one power as logical a deduction from the premises dt 
state sovereignty as the other. The only majority which 
could, he conceived, under our federal system, avail to 
overcome the opposition of a State to the exercise of 
the contested power was the majority which could amend 
the Constitution : that majority, and not the majority of 
Congress, could override nullification, by the process of 
amendment, inasmuch as the Union was a confederation 
of interests, not a mere combination of individuals. Our 
system was meant to fortify the constitution-making 
power against the law-making. 

In the minds of the public men of South Carolina this 
letter was conclusive, not only as to what ought to be 
held, but also as to what ought to be done. The State 
Legislature came together in October and formally called 
a convention for the following month. The convention 
was immediately chosen, and convened in Columbia on 
Ordinance of November 19. On November 24 it passed an 
nullification, ordinance of nullification, which declared the 
Tariff Acts of 1828 and 1832 null and void and without 



1832.] Nullification. 61 

force within the jurisdiction of South Carolina; prohib- 
ited the payment of duties under those laws within the 
State after the first day of the following February ; for- 
bade, under penalties, appeals upon the questions involved 
to the courts of the United States ; and declared that any 
attempt on the part of the federal government to enforce 
the nullified laws in South Carolina would sever the 
State's connection with the Union and force her to orsfan- 
ize a separate government. Meantime (November 6) 
Jackson had sent instructions to the collector of the port 
of Charleston to collect the duties at all hazards, if neces- 
sary by the use of force, — as much force as might be 
needed. When the convention promulgated its ordin- 
Jackson's aucc, he issued a proclamation (December 11), 
proclamation, couched in terms characteristically direct and 
vehement. It argued the manifest practical difficulties 
of the doctrine of nullification, and very firmly denounced 
it as " incompatible with the existence of the Union, con- 
tradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, un- 
authorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle 
on which it was founded, and destructive of the great 
object for which it was formed." He exhorted the peo- 
ple of South CaroHna to yield, but he offered no com- 
promise. " The laws of the United States," declared the 
President, "must be executed. I have no discretionary 
power on the subject, — my duty is emphatically pro- 
nounced in the Constitution. Those who told you that 
you might peacefully prevent their execution deceived 
you. . . . Their object is disunion, and disunion by 
armed force is treason." The state authorities, never- 
theless, did not flinch even in the face of this ominous 
proclamation. A new legislature, in which the nuliifiers 
South Caro- had secured an overwhelming majority, met in 
hna defiant. Columbia the same month, and called Mr. 
Hayne from the Senate to assume the governorship of 



62 Period of Critical Change. [§§ 31, 32. 

the State ; and one of the first acts of the new governor 
was to issue a proclamation of his own, denouncing the 
utterance of the President, and calling upon the people 
of the State to stand firm in their opposition to its per- 
nicious doctrines. During these transactions Calhoun 
resigned the ofiice of Vice-President to accept Hayne's 
vacated seat upon the floor of the Senate. He must be 
in the arena itself, where part of the battle was to be 
fought. 

32. The Presidential Election of 1832. 

In the mean time there had been a new presidential 
election ; the President had "taken the sense of the coun- 
try," and regarded the result as a triumph 

Importance i,r i-ir iri- i '-i 

of the elec- both lor himseli and tor his avowed prmciples 
**"°' of government. This election is notable for 

several reasons. It marks the beginning of the system 
of national nominating conventions ; it gave Jackson a 
second term of ofiice, in which he was to display his 
peculiar qualities more conspicuously than ever; it com- 
pacted and gave distinct character to the new Democratic 
party; and it practically settled directly the fate of the 
Bank of the United States, and indirectly the question of 
nullification. Jackson was easily re-elected, for he had 
established a great popularity, and the opposition was 
divided. 

A new party came into the field, and marked its ad- 
vent by originating the national nominating convention. 
This was the Anti-Masonic party. In 1826 
nominating one William Morgan, who had ventured to 
convention, j-n^j^g public the secrets of the Masonic order, 
was abducted, and, it was alleged, murdered. The event 
created great excitement, and led, singularly enough, to 
the formation of a political party whose first tenet was 
the duty of excluding Freemasons from public ofiice. 



1832.] Election of 1832. 63 

This party spread so rapidly that within four years it 
assumed something like the proportions of a national 
organization. By September, 183 1, it was able to muster 
a national nominating convention, in which more than half 
the States were represented. This convention put in nom- 
ination William Wirt of Virginia, formerly Attorney-Gen- 
eral. The National Republicans, following suit, met in a 
similar convention in December of the same year, and by 
unanimous vote nominated Henry Clay of Kentucky, al- 
ready once before Jackson's rival for the presidency. A 
" national assembly of young men " also met in Washing- 
ton in May, 1832, at the suggestion of members of the Clay 
party, to indorse the National Republican nominations, 
and to add another point to subsequent practice by adopt- 
ing a set of formal resolutions defining its position on the 
issues of the campaign, "the first platform ever adopted 
The first by a national convention." These resolutions 
" platform." denounced Jackson for most of the acts of his 
administration ; declared that the Supreme Court of the 
United States (rather than the President, or the leading 
public men in South Carolina) was the proper tribunal 
"for deciding in the last resort all questions arising un- 
der the Constitution and laws of the United States ; " and 
favored the pohcy of protection. The Democrats, in 
their turn, also held a convention in May, 1832, without 
hesitation renominated Jackson for the presidency, and, 
with considerably less spontaneity, Martin Van Buren 
for the vice-presidency. Mr. Van Buren was Jackson's 
choice for the office, and it was Jackson's 

Van Buren, . i r i i • •, 

preference that forced him upon the party, 
many of whose members would have been glad to have 
some one else. Calhoun had fallen out from the line of 
succession since his breach with the President; his posi- 
tion at the time with reference to nullification practically 
severed his connection with parties altogether. 



64 Period of Critical Change. [§§ 32, 33 

The result of the election was decisive. The elec- 
toral votes of all the southern States even, except 
those of South Carolina and five out of the eight votes 
of Maryland, were cast for Jackson, whose total was 
219. Only 49 votes were cast for Clay; South Caro- 
lina threw away her eleven votes on John Floyd of 
Virginia ; and Vermont alone was carried by the Anti- 
Masons. 

Upon Jackson, with his somewhat Napoleonic instincts, 
the election acted like the tonic of a favorable plebiscite. 
Significance He was incapable of entertaining any purpose 
of the result, ^q overthrow the Constitution, or even to act 
in contravention of its provisions ; but he did claim the 
right to read and interpret that instrument for himself, 
without the assistance either of the courts or of the lead- 
ers of pohtics ; and he took his second election to mean 
that the people gave him carte blanche to act as their 
representative, on that theory. The chief issue of the 
election had been the question of the re-charter of the 
Bank of the United States, — a question which we shall 
presently discuss. The tariff question had entered only 
in a subordinate degree, for Jackson was not fully com- 
mitted with regard to it, and the nuUification troubles had 
not come to a head until too late to affect the vote materi- 
ally. It was Jackson's immense popularity, the divisions 
among his opponents, his successes, and their lack of 
unity that determined the result. But Jackson made no 
close analysis of the result. He was heartened by the 
Effect upon consciousness that he had been such a Presi- 
jackson. ^QX)X as the people liked and were ready to 
support. It was probably this feeling that contributed to 
give its clear ring of determination to the proclamation 
which he issued against the nullifiers in December. In 
January he asked Congress for special powers to enforce 
the revenue laws. He wished to be authorized to alter 



1832, iS33-] Compromise and Reconciliation. 65 

revenue districts as he thought best, to change the local- 
ity of custom houses when necessary, and to use the land 
and naval forces of the government to prevent unlawful 
interference with the powers of collectors. There was 
evident need that such powers should be conferred upon 
the Executive, for the legislature of South Carolina, after 
electing Hayne governor, had passed Acts practically re- 
suming some of the powers expressly withheld from the 
States by the federal Constitution, and had taken steps to 
put the State in a condition of mihtary preparation against 
the time of federal action in February. A bill to enforce 
...„ ., the tariff laws was therefore introduced into 

" Force Bill.'' . •. -r-. • i .1 

Congress m response to the President s re- 
quest, and became known as the " Force Bill." 



S3. Compromise and Keconciliation (1832, 1833). 

While the employment of force was proposed, however, 
conciliation also was attempted, — at the suggestion of 
Verplanck's the administration itself. The Secretary of 
tariff bill. i-j^g Treasury had recommended in his annual 
report that the duties be lowered to the revenue standard, 
and on December 27 Mr. Verplanck, chairman of the 
Committee of Ways and Means, had reported to the 
House a bill meant to effect a return to the tariff of 1816. 
The protectionists of the House, however, subjected the 
measure to a raking fire of debate and amendment which 
very soon disfigured it beyond recognition, and which de- 
layed final action upon it until within two weeks of the 
end of the session. The Senate did not wait for the 
action of the House. On February 12, Mr. Clay intro- 
Clay'scom- duced a compromise measure in the Senate, 
promise. intended at once to save the principle of pro- 

tection and to stave off civil difficulties. Taking the 
tariff of 1832 as a basis, it provided that all duties which, 

S 



66 Period of Critical Change. [§ as- 

under the provisions of that tariff, exceeded twenty per 
cent should be reduced by one tenth of that excess on the 
ist of January, 1834, and of each alternate year till 1840, 
and that then, on the ist of January, 1842, one half of 
the remaining excess should be taken off, and on the ist 
of July, 1842, the other half, so that after the first day of 
July, 1842, there should be a uniform duty of twenty per 
cent on all articles. South Carolina had early given no- 
tice that such an horizontal rate was the least concession 
that would satisfy her. To Mr. Clay's measure, after a 
little hesitation, all parties assented. On February 26 
the House dropped its own bill and took up the Senate 
measure, which it speedily passed. Passing the Senate 
also, the bill became law on March 2, 1833, the day 
before the tariff law of 1832 was to have gone into effect. 
The " Force Bill " became law one day earlier, on the first 
of March. 

What had been happening in South Carolina in the 
mean time ? The nullification ordinance was to have gone 
into effect on the first of February. It had unquestion- 
ably been intended, however, to force, not war, but con- 
cession; and it would have been in the highest degree 
e, . unwise and maladroit to attempt to put it 

Suspension , ^ ^ 

of the ordi- forcibly into operation while Congress was 
actually debating concession. Virginia, more- 
over, when she saw preparations a-making for actual con- 
flict between South Carolina and the federal authorities, 
had undertaken the part of mediator. Her legislature 
passed resolutions which reiterated the principles of the 
celebrated Resolutions of 1798, — while expressing the 
opinion that those principles sanctioned neither the action 
of South Carolina nor the proclamation of the President, 
— and which begged South Carohna at least to suspend 
her ordinance until after the close of the session of Con- 
gress. But the convention which had passed the ordi- 



^ 



i833-] Compromise and Reconciliation. 67 

nance had dispersed, and no power existed which, under 
the theory of nullification, was authorized to repeal it. 
Under such circumstances, since nothing regular could 
be done, something very irregular was resolved upon, 
which no conceivable theory of constitutional law could 
justify, but which prudence and practical wisdom never- 
theless demanded. Governor Hayne replied to the over- 
tures of Virginia that the ordinance would be suspended 
by common consent, and a private meeting of leading 
public men was held in Charleston late in January, which 
declared the ordinance suspended until Congress should 
adjourn. The. federal officers collected the duties after 
the first day of February as before. On March 11, the 
nullification convention reassembled at the call of the 
governor, and, reciting the concessions of Congress, 
Repeal of the repealed the ordinance nullifying the tariff 
ordinance. laws. At the same time, however, it passed 
another ordinance nullifying the Force Bill, which there 
was then no longer any reason for putting into operation. 
The outcome of the matter could not be wholly satis- 
factory to either party. South Carolina had obtained the 
concessions which she had demanded; but the Force 
Bill was still unrepealed, and stood as a fiat denial of the 
whole principle for which the nullifiers had contended. 
The federal authorities had collected the revenue at the 
ports of South Carolina, and enforced the law which she 
had attem.pted to nulhfy ; but then they had 
immediately withdrawn that lavv?- and acceded 
to the State's demands. Nullification had succeeded in 
its immediate practical object by gettmg rid of the laws 
at which it had been aimed ; but it had failed in the much 
greater matter of establishing itself as an acknowledged 
principle. What is most striking in the whole affair for 
the student of institutions is, that it gave to the practical 
politics of an English people a theoretical cast such as 



68 Period of Critical Change. [§§ 33, 34. 

the politics of no English community had ever worn be- 
fore. Practical considerations, hitherto conclusive in all 
matters of English development, were now for the first 
time compelled to contest their right with refined theories 
of government; had a cunning net of logical inference 
from a written document thrown about them by a master 
of logic, and were bidden to extricate themselves without 
breaking the net. 



1789-1833-1 Bank of the United States, 6g 



CHAPTER III. 

THE BANK QUESTION (1828-1837). 

34. The Bank of tlie United States (1789-1816). 

The re-election of Jackson in 1832 sealed the fate of 
the Bank of the United States, and ultimately resulted 
Currency ^^ ^ Complete revolution in the fiscal policy of 
question. the government. The Constitution may be 
said to have been in large part created by a fiscal ques- 
tion. Tariff wars between the States and the dangers 
of an unsound currency had been prominent among the 
causes which led to the formation of a strengthened fed- 
eral government in 1789. One of the chief objects of 
those who advocated and framed the new government 
was to create an authority which could supply the coun- 
try with a safe currency (Formation of the Union, § 53). 
The Congress of the Confederation and the governments 
of the States had demoralized commerce and industry by 
unlimited issues of irredeemable paper money, and the 
Constitution of 1787 was meant to secure the country 
against like folly in the future. It vested in Congress 
Federal alone the power to coin money and regulate the 

convention, yalue of coiu ; it explicitly forbade the States 
to emit bills of credit ; and it nowhere granted the power 
to emit such bills to Congress. A proposition to con- 
fer that power upon Congress had been defeated in the 
constitutional convention by a heavy majority. There 
remained, however, a device for issuing paper money. It 
was promptly held by the courts that this power, which 
the States could not directly exercise, they could exercise 



70 Period of Critical Change. [§§ 34, 35. 

indirectly through the instrumentality of banks. While 

state legislatures could not vote government issues, they 

could incorporate banks and authorize them, 

State banks. • • , . i • , • 

as joint-Stock companies, to issue paper in 
any amount they chose, without restriction or safeguard, 
and that even when the State itself arranged to become 
the chief or only stockholder. The only way in which 
the federal government could check such operations, 
apparently, was by going into the field of competition 
itself and dominating unsound state banks by means of 
a sound national bank whose issues would be extensive 
and accepted with confidence. 

The first Bank of the United States had been estab- 
lished, at the suggestion of Hamilton, for several pur- 
Bank of the poses: not only in order to furnish the coun- 
United States, ^j-y ^yjj-];^ 2X least One sound and stable currency, 
but also in order to serve as the fiscal agent of the gov- 
ernment in handling its revenues and floating its loans, 
and in order to interest men with money in the new fed- 
eral governmient (Formation of the Union, § 78). That 
it did act as a check upon the less rehable state banks 
is made sufficiently manifest by the opposition offered to 
the renewal of its twenty-year charter, which expired in 
181 1. After experiencing for five years, however, the 
combined financial effects of war and state banking, the 
country was glad to see a second Bank of the United 
States chartered in 181 6 (Formation of the Union, § 120). 

35. Constitutionality of the Bank (1789-1S19). 

The constitutionality of a bank chartered by Congress 
had early been called in question. Where, it was asked, 
did Congress, exercising only specified powers, get the 
authority to grant charters ? And, even if it could grant 
charters, whence did it derive the right to charter a bank 



J791-1S29.J Constitutionality of the Bank. yi 

and give to it the handling of the national revenues? 
The Constitution gave to Congress the power to lay and 
collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts 
and provide for the common defence and general welfare 
of the United States ; the power to borrow money on the 
credit of the United States ; and the power to coin money 
and regulate the value of both foreign and domestic coin. 
But how, from any one of these powers, or from all of 
them put together, could it argue its right to create a 
great semi-governmental bank? The last clause of the 
article of the Constitution conferring powers upon Con- 
gress did indeed say that Congress might make " all laws 
which should be necessary and proper for carrying into 
execution the foregoing powers ; " but could this bank be 
said to be both necessary and proper for carrying into 
execution the limited fiscal functions of the federal gov- 
^ , . ernment? Washington had thousfht these 

Early views. . ° . , r 

questions worthy 01 consideration before sign- 
ing the bill which created the first national bank in 1791, 
and had obtained careful written opinions from Hamilton 
and Jefferson. Hamilton had argued strongly in favor 
of the constitutionality of the bank, Jefferson as strongly 
against it ; but Washington had accepted the reasoning 
of Hamilton (Formation of the Union, § 78), and in 1819 
^ . . , the Supreme Court of the United States, in 

Decision of ^ ^ %• r Ti r ^~> rr y 

the Supreme the leading case of McCulloch vs. Maryland^ 
Court. sustained the Act creating the second Bank 

of the United States upon substantially the same grounds 
that Hamilton had urged (Formation of the Union, 
§ 125). It held that, while it was true that the govern- 
ment of the United States was a government of specified 
powers only, it must nevertheless be deemed to be sov- 
ereign within the sphere assigned to it by the Constitu- 
tion ; that the powers granted must be taken to include 
every privilege incidental to their exercise, the choice of 



72 Period of Critical Change. [§§ 35, 36 

the means by which the ends of the government were to 
be reached lying in every case within the discretion of 
Congress, and not being subject to be restrained by the 
courts. The Bank had been chartered as a fiscal agent 
of the government : whether the creation of such an 
agency was necessary and proper to the exercise of its 
fiscal functions it was for Congress, not for the courts, to 
judge. A "sound construction of the Constitution must 
allow to the national legislature that discretion with re- 
spect to the means by which the powers it confers are 
to be carried into execution, which will enable that body 
to perform the high duties assigned to it, in the manner 
most beneficial to the people." 

36. Jackson's Hostility to the Bank (1829, 1830). 

Such a decision was of course conclusive of all legal 
controversy. But it had not by any means satisfied all 
Opposition minds. Many still dreaded the effects of the 
to the Bank, exercise of such powers by Congress, even 
when they did not doubt their constitutionality. They 
dreaded the power of this great corporation which the 
federal government had set up to dominate the money 
transactions of the country. Jackson was of the number 
of those who felt uneasy about the influence of the Bank. 
Moreover, he never considered any question settled 
merely because the Supreme Court had passed upon it. 
He did not, therefore, hesitate to speak of the Bank in 
disparaging terms of covert hostility in the very first 
message he sent to Congress. The charter of the Bank 
was not to expire until 1836, and the term of office for 
which Jackson had been elected when he wrote the mes- 
sage of December, 1829, was to end in 1833. ^^ was sin- 
gular that he should call the attention of Congress to a 
matter with the final settlement of which he might have 



1819-1830.] Jackson's Hostility to the Bank. n^ 

nothing to do. But delicacy did not weigh with Jackson 
any more than the judgments of the Supreme Court, 
He attacked the Bank at once, and the terms in which he 
did so deserve transcription as a suitable text 
for the controversies that were to follow. 
" The charter of the Bank of the United States expires 
in 1836, and its stockholders will most probably apply 
for a renewal of their privileges. In order to avoid the 
evils resulting from precipitancy in a measure involving 
such important principles and such deep pecuniary in- 
terests, I feel that I cannot, in justice to the parties inter- 
ested, too soon present it to the deliberate consideration 
of the legislature and the people. Both the constitution- 
ality and the expediency of the law creating this Bank are 
well questioned by a large portion of our fellow-citizens ; 
and it must be admitted by all that it has failed in the 
great end of establishing a uniform and sound currency. 
Under these circumstances, if such an instrument is 
deemed essential to the fiscal operations of the govern- 
ment, I submit to the wisdom of the legislature whether 
a national one, founded upon the credit of the govern- 
ment and its revenues, might not be devised, which would 
avoid all constitutional difficulties, and at the same time 
secure all the advantages to the government and the 
country that were expected to result from the present 
Bank." These sentences forecast a great deal that was 
to follow. There was more feeling and determination 
back of them, they were spoken with much more de- 
finiteness of purpose, than appeared upon their smooth 
surface. Congress at first attached no importance to 
these utterances of the President ; but again and again, 
in subsequent messages, Jackson returned to the subject, 
his language becoming constantly more and more explicit 
in its hostility, until at length decisive measures of self« 
defence were forced upon the friends of the Bank. 



74 Period of Critical Change, [§§ 36, 37. 

Jackson's feelings towards the Bank were compounded 
of many elements, and it is impossible to assign to these 
Objections their relative importance in shaping his pur- 
examined. poses. His declaration that the Bank had 
failed to establish a sound currency was notoriously with- 
out reasonable foundation. Every observant man was 
convinced that the Bank had gone far towards accom- 
plishing that very object. But he hit upon a very wide- 
spread sentiment, and so was upon firmer ground, when, 
at a later stage of the controversy, he stigmatized the 
Bank as an "un-American monopoly." 



37. History of Banking in the United States (1783-1829). 

The history of banking corporations in the United States 
has shown the power of economic errors to perpetuate 
themselves when they happen to fall in with certain dem- 
ocratic notions entertained by the masses of the people. 
The debtor class in all parts of the country, and all 
classes in the newer settlements, had a marked partiality 
Paper f^r paper money. Abundant money, even if 

money. unsound, seemed to furnish the capital which 

the newer communities so much needed for their develop- 
ment. The control which the possession of real capital 
gave those who possessed it over the fortunes of those 
who needed it was hated as the "money power." That 
shrewd capital should be able to make its own hard 
terms with the plain and earnest men who were seeking 
to get at the riches of the new continent, but lacked the 
means necessary to supplement their muscle, seemed 
a grinding monopoly, essentially undemocratic, because 
enjoyed by very few persons. It was a delightful, even 
if a delusive, discovery, therefore, that by authorizing 
certain individuals to issue their promises to pay, you 
could create the means of buying cattle and ploughs and 



17S3-1829.J Banking in the United States, 75 

seed without awaiting the slow accumulation of super- 
abundant, loanable wealth ; and it seemed a great hard' 
ship that the usefulness of this discovery should be 
hampered by the setting up of a great corporation by 
the federal government possessing such resources and 
power as to be able to discredit and embarrass local banks 
in carrying out their beneficent function of distributing 
fictitious and prospective wealth. 

Moreover, there was a grave element of party politics 
in the whole question. The chartering of banks, during 
all the earlier history of the country, was effected ex- 
clusively by direct act of legislature. It was not open 
Political to every one to obtain a charter, — that was a 

charters. privilege which would be bestowed only by 
favor; and many state legislatures were in the habit of 
conferring banking powers only upon the party friends 
of the majority. The persons thus favored, having 
received their charters as a pohtical trust, employed the 
privileges enjoyed under them in a partisan spirit, 
granted accommodations m.uch more readily and on 
much easier terms to fellow partisans than to adherents 
of the opposite party, — willing to prove them.selves 
worthy of the confidence their friends in the legislature 
had reposed in them. Such practices had been common 
enough to generate an atmosphere of suspicion. Par- 
tisan banking was expected; a sort of presumption was 
created that corrupt influences tainted the whole system 
of charters and privileges of issue. There seems un- 
questionably to have been a widespread feeling of jeal- 
ousy and suspicion, accordingly, in the minds of the 
people with regard to the Bank of the United States ; 
at any rate, a widespread readiness to suspect and be 
jealous, both because the national Bank was knov/n to 
check the operations of the state banks, and because it 
was taken almost for granted that it would use the great 



75 Period of Critical Change. [§§ 37, 38. 

power which it possessed for political purposes, — to con- 
trol elections, when necessary, in its own interest, and to 
buy the favor of influential public men. 

38. The Branch Bank at Portsmouth (1829). 

These were impressions which Jackson seems to have 
shared in some degree from the first, though probably 
Hill and they did not take clear shape in his mind 
Mason, j until his hostility to the Bank was otherwise 
aroused. His purposeful convictions about the Bank 
were formed during the first summer of his presidency, 
the summer of 1829. It was then that what seemed to 
him a clear case of improper political motive in the 
management of the Bank was brought to his notice. 
Isaac Hill and Levi Woodbury were Jackson leaders in 
New Hampshire. They had won the State over to the 
Jackson interest. Woodbury entered the Senate, and 
Hill left his newspaper and his state bank at Concord 
to enter the " Kitchen Cabinet." It was matter of deep 
chagrin to them that Jeremiah Mason, Webster's friend 
and their own most formidable opponent, an earnest and 
eloquent man of the ancient Federalist faith, should 
have been made president of the branch of the Bank 
of the United States at Portsmouth, with financial power 
in their State, and that he should distress some of their 
friends by insisting upon strict business methods, to the 
discouragement of all special pecuniary favors to any- 
body. In the summer of 1829 Woodbury wrote to 
Ingham, Secretary of the Treasury, making 
agaTnsr" ^ complaiuts of Mason, as not only harsh in his 
Mason. administration of the Bank, but guilty of par- 

tiality also in making' loans and insisting upon collec- 
tions. He could not specifically charge, but he wished 
to insinuate, political motives and partialities. At about 
the same time Amos Kendall repeated to the Secretary 



1S29] Branch Bank at Portsmouth. 77 

certain rumors which had reached his ears of an im- 
proper use of money by officers of the Bank in Ken- 
tucky to influence the election of 1825 in that State. 

The Secretary wrote to Mr. Nicholas Biddle, the pres- 
ident of the Bank of the United States, and called his 
Ingham's attention to the charges vi/hich had been made 
criticisms. against Mason, assuming a tone which im- 
plied that the Bank was in some way responsible to the 
administration in all its affairs. His letter seemed to 
take it for granted that Mr. Mason had been appointed 
because of his political views, — because, in short, the 
Bank was hostile to the Jackson interest in New Hamp- 
shire. It intimated that the theory upon which the Bank 
was understood to have been founded, and upon which 
it was now thought to be managed, was that the "arm ot 
wealth " ought to be strengthened, in order to " counter- 
poise the influence of extended suffrage in the disposition 
of public affairs," and that the only way in which to re- 
move the suspicion that this was the theory and policy 
of the institution was to make choice of its officers 
from both national parties, without discrimination. Mr. 
Biddle's Biddle replied with natural indignation, refut' 

defence. j^g the cliarges against Mason, asserting the 

perfectly non-partisan character of the administration of 
the Bank, and declaring, courteously but warmly, that, 
being non-partisan, it recognized no political respon- 
sibility either to the Secretary of the Treasury or to any 
one else. But his indignation, however natural, was im- 
politic; it savored too much of defiance and contempt 
to suit the temper of a Jackson administration. The 
Secretary startled Mr. Biddle by reminding him that it 
was within the privilege of the Secretary of the Treasury 
to remove the deposits of public money from the Bank; 
and the contents of the President's first message in- 
dicated the impression that had been made upon him. 



78 Period of Critical Change. [§§ 39, 40. 

39. Constitution of the Bank (1816-1832). 

Charges of all sorts began to be heaped up against 
the Bank ; and although they were, almost without ex- 
Management ceptioR, again and again wholly disproved, 
of the Bank, ^j^jgy j-qj^j 2X last against its reputation among 
tlie people at large by mere force of reiteration. During 
the first two years of the history of the Bank there had 
been gross mismanagement, which had disgusted even 
those who had voted for its charter; but by 1829 these 
early errors had been long ago corrected, and the Bank 
had established such a reputation for safe business 
methods that its only enemies were those who were 
jealous of its business privileges, or those who wished in 
vain to bring it to their assistance in politics. Its con- 
stitution made its connection with the federal 

Lonnection 

with the government quite close. The federal Treas- 

government. yj-y j^g^^^ Subscribed seven millions to its capital 
stock of thirty-five millions ; its other stockholders were 
privileged to make up three-fourths of their subscript 
tions in United States stock; five of its twenty-five 
directors were appointed by the President ; and it was 
the depository of the public funds. In return for these 
privileges the Bank had paid a million and a half dollars, 
and agreed to negotiate the loans of the government free 
of charge. No other bank, its charter promised, was to 
be established by Congress during the twenty years that 
charter was to run. The Secretary of the Treasury was 
authorized to withdraw the public moneys from the 
Bank in case he deemed it necessary to do so at any 
time, stating his reasons for his action to Congress at its 
next session. It was privileged to issue circulating notes, 
and these notes were made receivable for all dues to the 
United States ; but it was obliged by law to redeem its 
notes in specie on demand. The obligations of this 



1829-1832.] The Bank Charter, 79 

charter it had kept ; but in the eyes of the Jackson 
managers it was too closely connected with the govern- 
ment to be kept out of politics. It had too much at 
stake: if it was not active for the administration, it 
must, they argued, be active against it. 

40. The Fight for He-charter (1832). 

Just before the political campaign of 1832 the admin- 
istration seemed for a moment to relent in its pursuit of 
A lull in the Bank : McLane, who had taken Ingham's 
the attack. place at the Treasury Department after the 
breach between Jackson and Calhoun, made a report to 
Congress in December, 1 831, in which he strongly favored 
the Bank, and it began to look as if the administration 
were going, for a season at least, to let the bank question 
drop. But Clay was not wise enough to let this happen. 
He thought that he saw in the bank controversy a capital 
means of putting Jackson in the wrong in the eyes of the 
country, and defeating him in the election. The Whigs, at 
Clay's suggestion, made their advocacy of the Bank prom- 
inent in the address which they issued to the people in 
making their nominations in December, 1831, 
passes Con- and, upon Clay's urgent advice, the friends 
gress. q£ ^l^g Bank applied to Congress for a renewal 

of its charter during the session of Congress immediately 
preceding the campaign. A bill renewing the charter 
passed the Senate in June, 1832, by a vote of 28 to 20, 
and the House in July by a vote of 109 to 16. Jackson 
vetoed it in " a message of great ability, which was mainly 

„, devoted to proving the Bank, as then consti- 

Theveto. ^ ^ . . . ^ , 

tuted, to be an unnecessary, useless, expen- 
sive, un-American monopoly, always hostile to the 
interests of the people, and possibly dangerous to the gov- 
ernment as well." The majorities for the bill in Con- 



8o Period of Critical Change. [§§ 40, 41. 

gress were not large enough to pass it over the veto, and 
the two parties " went to the country " to obtain its ver- 
dict in the elections of November, 1832. 



41. Kemoval of the Deposits (1832-1833). 

The result showed the folly of which Clay had been 
guilty in supposing that respect for a great and useful 
Jackson moneyed corporation would be as universal or 

re-elected. ^g powerful a motive among the voters as 
appreciation of General Jackson, the man of the people. 
It was madness to stake the existence of a great bank on 
the popular vote. When the result was known, Jackson 
of course interpreted it to mean that he had a commis- 
sion from the people to destroy the Bank ; and he al- 
most immediately proceeded to destroy it. In his message 
of December, 1832, to the Congress which had attempted 
to re-charter the Bank, he intimated grave doubts as to 
its solvency, which nobody had yet dreamed of doubting, 
and suggested that its affairs ought to be investigated 
by Congress, especially for the purpose of ascertaining 
whether the deposits of the United States ought to be 
allowed to remain in it, in view of its disordered and per- 
haps precarious condition. The House decided, by a 
very large majority, that the deposits were safe. But the 
President was convinced that the Bank had gone into 
politics in the campaign of 1832, if never before, and 
that the public funds were not safe in the hands of the 
managers of "an electioneering machine." He deter- 
mined to take the responsibility of withdrawing them. 
In May, 1833, he appointed Livingston, the Secretary of 
State, minister to France, transferred McLane, a friend 
of the Bank, to the State Department, and appointed 
William J. Duane of Pennsylvania, an opponent of the 
Bank, Secretary of the Treasury. It was necessary that 



1832-1833] Removal of the Deposits, 81 

he should get a Secretary of the Treasury who would 

serve him in the business, for the law had conferred the 

authority to remove the deposits, not upon 

Removal , ^ •' . , , i V r i 

of the Sec- the President, Dut upon the Secretary of the 
retanes. Treasury, and had made him directly respons- 

ible for the exercise of it to Congress. The new Secretary, 
however, did not prove a pliant instrument ; when re- 
quested to order the removal he declined, and made an 
earnest protest against the policy. He did not believe 
that the President ought to act in a matter of so great 
importance without first obtaining the assent of Congress 
to the action he proposed to take ; and he saw that the 
sudden removal of the government deposits might cause 
a serious disturbance in the money market and jeopard 
important business interests. From no one, indeed, 
whose opinion was worth taking did Jackson receive the 
least encouragement to take the step he was contemplat- 
^ ing. But his mind was made up, and that 

read to the was the end of the matter. In September he 
cabinet." informed the cabinet that the removal of the 
deposits had been irrevocably determined upon, that it 
was his own decision, should be his own act, and he 
would take the responsibility. Duane declined to make 
way for the carrying out of the design by resigning; 
Jackson therefore dismissed him, and put in his place 
the Attorney-General, Roger B. Taney of Maryland, 
who was known to assent to the President's plan. Al- 
most immediately an order issued from the Treasury 
directing that the nearly ten millions of public money 
then in the Bank of the United States should be gradu- 
ally drawn upon, as usual, to meet the expenses of the 
government, but that no more should be deposited. Cer- 
tain state banks were selected instead as depositories of 
the revenues. The Bank of the United States was at 
once compelled to curtail its loans, to enable it to bear 

6 



82 Period of Critical Change, [§§ 41, 42 

the drain, and there was distress, almost a panic, in the 
money market. 

When Congress met in December, 1833, the President 
frankly explained why this extraordinary step had been 
Jackson's taken. He declared that he had received from 
reasons. ^j^g government directors of the Bank "an offi- 

cial report, establishing beyond question that this great 
and powerful institution had been actively engaged in at- 
tempting to influence the elections of the public officers by 
means of its money ; and that, in violation of the express 
provisions of its charter, it had by a formal resolution 
placed its funds at the disposition of its president, to be 
employed in sustaining the political pov/er of the Bank." 
It seemed to him that " the question was distinctly pre- 
sented whether the people of the United States are to 
govern through representatives chosen by their unbiassed 
suffrages, or whether the power and money of a great 
corporation are to be secretly exerted to influence their 
judgment and control their decisions." In everything 
that the Bank did, even in its curtailment of its loans to 
meet the withdrawal of the funds of the government, he 
saw nothing but trickery and a struggle for illegitimate 
power. It seems clear, too, that these were his real con- 
victions. Probably there was now at last some truth in 
the charges he made against the Bank. Although it was 
not the monster he pictured it, it had unquestionably 
gone into politics ; it had spent money in the elections, 
liberally, though probably not corruptly. Clay had de- 
stroyed it by forcing it to stake its life upon a political 
campaign, and so justify its enemies in their opinion of it. 
The Bank had submitted to a vote, and the vote had gone 
against it : that was the Jacksonian logic. It was the 
same doctrine of popular sovereignty with which the 
Jackson party had started out upon its career. 



1832-1834-] Censure and Protest. 8s 



42. Censure and Protest (1833, 1834). 

The House of Representatives to which Jackson ex- 
plained his motives in directing the removal of the de- 
Clay's res- posits was the House which had been elected 
olutions. \^ 1832, and in it his party possessed a de- 
cided majority. It approved his action, of course. Not 
so with the Senate. There his opponents controlled the 
majority, and were led by the best talent of the country ; 
and there Mr. Clay introduced resolutions censuring the 
President for dismissing a Secretary of the Treasury for 
refusing to act contrary to his sense of duty ; and attack- 
ing the new Secretary for removing the deposits for rea- 
sons " unsatisfactory and insufficient." 

Jackson would by no means submit to a public rebuke. 
He sent to the Senate a protest against its resolutions 
Jackson's v/liich Constitutes one of the most remarkable 
"■epiy- documents in the public records of the coun- 

try. Taken in connection with the message of July, 
1832, vetoing the bill which granted a renewal of the 
charter of the Bank, it furnishes a complete exposition 
of the Jacksonian theory of the government. The veto 
message had declared that the President was not bound 
in his judgment of what was or was not constitutional 
either by precedent or by the decisions of the Supreme 
Jacksonian Court. "Mere precedent," it said, "is a 
doctrine. dangerous source of authority, and should not 
be regarded as deciding questions of constitutional power 
except where the acquiescence of the people and the 
States can be considered as well settled." Congress, it 
showed, had itself wavered in its view of the matter, and 
the state legislatures were probably " as four to one " 
against the Bank. " The opinion of the judges has no 
more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress 
has over the judges ; and, on that point, the President is 



84 Period of Critical Change, [§§ 42, 43- 

independent of both." The decisions of the Supreme 
Court must be permitted " to have only such influence as 
the force of their reasoning may deserve." The protest 
added that it was not within the constitutional privilege 
of one of the Houses of Congress to condemn the Presi- 
dent in any manner except by the process of impeach- 
ment ; that the President, not the Secretaries, constituted 
the executive of the United States; and that the Presi- 
dent — at any rate the President now in office — was the 
direct representative of the people, their organ, spokes- 
man, and embodiment. Such was Jackson's construction 
of the Constitution. 

Two years later the friends of General Jackson com- 
manded a majority in the Senate, and on January 16, 
1837, the resolutions of censure were expunged from the 
journal of that body. 

The Bank of the United States quietly arranged its 
affairs against the expiration of its national charter, 
Expiration obtained a charter as a state bank from the 
of charter legislature of Pennsylvania, and passed for 
the time out of general view. 

43. Diplomatic Successes (1829-1831). 

Perhaps the most satisfactory part of Jackson's record 
as President is to be found in his settlement of two inter- 
esting and important questions affecting the foreign rela- 
tions of the country. Guided by Van Buren in matters 
which required delicacy, he exhibited the same initiative 
and energy in diplomacy that characterized him in deal- 
ing with questions of domestic polic}''. 

Trade with the West India Islands had seemed ever 
since colonial times the natural and rightful outlet of our 
commerce ; but when the States ceased to be colonies they 
parted with the privileges as well as with the disadvantages 



1783-1830.] Diplomatic Successes. 85 

of belonging to the British Empire, and began to be 
excluded from their former free intercourse with neigh- 
West India boring British possessions. (Formation of the 
trade. Union, §§ 47, 56, 63.) Until 1825 Eng- 

land kept steadily to her policy of favoring her own 
ships in trade with all her colonial ports, and laying 
all manner of restrictions upon ships of other nations, 
and there seemed no hope of ever breaking down her ex- 
clusive navigation system. The only thing that could be 
done, according to the notions of the time in such matters, 
was done : countervailing restrictions were laid upon Eng- 
lish ships in their trade with American ports. In 1825, 
however, under the influence of Huskisson, England of- 
fered to open her ports and the ports of her colonies to the 
vessels of any nation that would open her own ports to 
English vessels, upon the same terms that should be ex- 
tended to the latter. The offer was to be left open for one 
year. Congress did not take advantage of it ; and when 
Gallatin, for the Adams administration, proposed, after the 
close of the period, to negotiate the question of the trade 
relationships between the two countries, England de- 
clined. Jackson saw the value of the West India trade 
to the United States, and he saw the only means of secur- 
ing it. He moved towards his object with his usual 
directness. He sent McLane to England to say that the 
Adams administration had been rejected by the Ameri- 
can people; that the new administration was of a new 
mind ; that the United States would repeal all her own 
restrictions upon the carrying trade of England if Eng- 
land would remove hers upon the carrying trade of the 
United States to the West India ports. Congress, the 
while (May 29, 1830), passed an Act to the same effect. 
Lord Aberdeen said that that was all that England had 
ever demanded, and the affair was settled. 

The other question arose out of the claims of the 



S6 Period of Critical Chmige. [§§ 43. 44- 

United States upon France for depredations upon Amer- 
ican commerce during the Napoleonic wars, 
spoliation known as the French spoliation claims. These 
claims. Jackson undertook to press, and circumstances 

favored the success of the negotiations which he set on 
foot. 1830 witnessed a revolution in France, the eleva- 
tion of Louis Philippe to the throne, and the establish- 
ment of a constitutional government. The claims of the 
United States this government recognized as just, and it 
was agreed that they should be paid. The United States 
had claims also against other European powers for in- 
juries done citizens of the Union during the same period, 
and these too were liquidated through the efforts of the 
Jackson administration. 

These successes gained for Jackson great credit with 
the country, for they not only obtained money and com- 
jackson's mercial advantage, but also maintained the 
reputation. dignity of the government, which foreign 
powers had hitherto never shown themselves very prompt 
to respect. Whenever directness and energy could suc- 
ceed, Jackson was sure of success ; and he certainly de- 
serves credit in these transactions for a clear perception of 
what ought to be done and a straightforward confidence 
in doing it, even when it took the un-Jacksonian form of 
asking favors. 

44. Distribution of the Surplus (1833-1836). 

Whatever may be said of Jackson's charges against the 
Bank of the United States or of his method of effecting 
Dan<-er from i^s ruin, it was probably a wise instinct that 
the Bank. jg^j \{y^ to destroy it. The country was on 
the eve of a great industrial development, when busi- 
ness was to enter upon a period of unparalleled expan- 
sion, and when a new force of speculative adventure was 
to hurry men beyond all rational reckonings, and make 



1S30-1S36.] Distribution of the Surplus, 87 

enterprise often as unwise as it was eager. In such a 
period, with such an atmosphere, when prudence could 
scarcely anywhere keep its head, it would have been in- 
deed perilous to leave so great, so dominating a financial 
power in the hands of a giant private corporation like the 
Bank of the United States. 

On the other hand, however, it could do nothing but 
harm to destroy such an institution suddenly, with an 
_ ^ ignorant and almost brutal disregard of the 

Danger from 

destroying damage that would thereby be done to the 
the Bank. delicate fabric of commercial credit. If it 
was the right thing to do, Jackson did it in the worst 
possible v/ay. The effect of it was to produce at once 
and of a sudden, and to leave without check or guidance 
of any kind, the very madness of speculation and of 
bubble banking that the great presiding bank might in 
some measure have moderated and restrained. 

No sooner had the policy of withholding the federal 
deposits from the Bank of the United States been deter- 
^ , mined upon than every circumstance, whether 

Surplus. . ,,..,. -^ - 

good or bad m itself, seemed to conspire with 
every other to precipitate a financial crisis. Even the 
paying off of the national debt indirectly contributed to 
that result. By the close of the year 1835 all the obliga- 
tions of the Federal Government had been paid, and it 
was entirely free from debt. At once the question arose, 
What is to be done with the surplus revenue ? The re- 
ceipts of the government could not very well be reduced, 
because they came chiefly from the customs duties, and 
the customs duties were levied under the compromise 
Tariff Act of 1833, which was a pledge of peace between 
parties and could not in good faith be touched. The 
oroposal which found most favor under the circum- 
stances was, that the surplus should be distributed among 
the States. Accordingly, in June, 1836, an Act was 



88 Period of Critical Change, [1344-46. 

passed which provided that on and after January ist, 
1837, all surplus funds remaining in the Treasury in 
. excess of $5,000,000 should be distributed in 

quarterly payments to the States. There 
were known to be scruples in some quarters about 
making direct gifts in aid to the States, and in these 
scruples the President was known to share. The dis- 
tribution was declared by the Act, therefore, to be of 
the nature of loans to the States, though without interest, 
to be recalled at the pleasure of Congress. Jackson 
signed the bill, and three quarterly payments were 
made under it, the total sum distributed amounting to 
$28,000,000. After that, as it turned out, there was no 
surplus to distribute. Reckless speculation brought fatal 
disaster, and the government suffered with the country. 



45. The "Pet Baixks" (1833-1836). 

When the deposits of the federal government were 
withdrawn from the Bank of the United States, the 
Places of Treasury Department selected certain state 
deposit. banks to take the place of the "monster" 

corporation as custodians of the funds. These the 
political slang of the time promptly dubbed the "pet 
banks." They were chosen, evidently, not according to 
any criterion of soundness, but on the principle which 
had hitherto been followed in the States in the granting 
of bank charters, the principle, namely, of party fidelity. 
The deposits were placed with Democratic banks in the 
South and West, — where there was either little capital 
and a good deal of speculation, or no capital at all and 
a vast deal of speculation, — rather than with " Whig 
banks " in the North and East. There followed, of 
course, eager, even bitter, competition on the part of De- 
mocratic bankers everywhere for admission to the select 



1833-1837-] The ''Pet Banks:' 89 

company of custodians. All sorts of influences were 
brought to bear, and all sorts of influences were success- 
ful in swelling the number of favored depositories. 

Stimulated not a little by such chances of lucrative 

favors from the government, and given almost a clear 

field by the destruction of the Bank of the 

Multiplica- __ . , _ . , 

tion of banks United States at a time when enterprise was 
of issue. jj^ ^ parts of the country assuming a new 

boldness and adventuring a new magnitude of plan, a 
passion for the establishment of banks of issue mani- 
fested itself everywhere. Charters were granted whole- 
sale by the States, without deliberation or prudence, and 
without effort to effect any system or exercise any con- 
trol. Hundreds of banks, with no capital at all, issued 
their notes as boldly and as freely as the few banks that 
had real resources and tried to keep a specie reserve. 
Even while the Bank of the United States continued to 
exercise a certain presidency and control in such matters, 
the aggregate circulation of the state banks had been 
several times greater than its own ; and now that the 
influence and power of the great bank were withdrawn, 
the volume of bank paper swelled to a portentous bulk. 



46. Inflation (1833-1836). 

Speculation of every sort, and particularly of every 

unsound sort, received an immense impetus. Money 

„„ , was abundant and, inasmuch as it did not 
Effect of . ' , . _, 

government represent capital, was easy to obtain. The 

eposits. Treasury chose its depositories, not where 

money was needed for legitimate purposes or could be 

used to the best advantage, but where there were faithful 

Democratic bankers ; and those who received it felt bound 

to find borrowers who would use it. The paper notes 

of the local banks were not good to travel with ; they 



90 Period of Critical Change. [§§ 46, 47. 

rapidly depreciated as they left the neighborhood of the 
bank of issue. Only a very few banks were either known 
or trusted throughout any large part of the country ; 
but the issues of every bank could be disposed of, and 
fatally facilitated the starting of enterprises of all kinds. 
The distribution of the surplus among the States embar- 
rassed the banks of deposit, because they had to meet 
Effect of tl^^ quarterly payments ; but although it ar- 
distribution. bitrarily shifted the locality of speculation, it 
did not decrease its bulk or seriously diminish its spirit. 
The States themselves found schemes to put the money 
into, and that answered the same purpose; enterprise 
was made the more confident, if anything, and the more 
universal : the bubble of inflation grew all the bigger 
and all the thinner. Railroads, too, were now beginning 
to suggest the rapid extension of the area of enterprise ; 
everywhere the cry was, " Develop the country." 

Jackson made trial of the efficacy of a small pill 
against the earthquake. It had not been his intention 
Jackson on to clear the field of sound money and make 
the currency, way for the reign of paper credit. He took 
occasion to avow his opinion that gold and silver were 
the "true constitutional currency" of the country, and 
a distinct effort was made by the administration to force 
the output of the national mints into circulation. The 
coinage of 1833 amounted to less than four 
coinage. ^jjjJQj^g . ^j^g^^ Qf jg^/j^ Considerably exceeded 

seven millions, the increase being almost altogether in 
the gold coinage ; and arrangements were made with the 
deposit banks that they should issue no notes of less 
than twenty dollars, at the same time that one-third of 
their circulation should represent specie. A great many 
of the States, too, were induced to forbid the issue of 
notes of the smaller denominations by the state banks. 
But no small expedients could stay the rising tide of 



1S34-1836] The " Specie Circular y 91 

bank circuktion, could provide capital to uphold that 
circulation, or assuage the fever of speculation that had 
fallen upon the country. 

47. Tlie "Specie Circular" (1836). 

The situation, too, as was to have been expected, 
speedily became perilous for the government. Its rev- 
enues w^ere being received in the paper of the banks, 
which exhibited all varieties and stages of depreciation. 
Sale of pub- Speculation began to have an extraordinary 
lie lands. effect upon the sales of the public lands. In 
1834 less than five millions accrued from their sale; but 
in 1835 more than fourteen millions, and in 1836 nearly 
twenty-five millions ; and these sales of course brought 
a flood of depreciated paper into the Treasury. Jackson 
was alarmed, and determined that, so far at any rate as 
the federal government was concerned, the "true con- 
stitutional currency" should be restored. July 11, 1836, 
accordingly, there issued from the Treasury 
the celebrated " Specie Circular," which di- 
rected that thereafter nothing but specie should be 
taken by the land agents in payment for public lands. 
The receipt by the Treasury of any notes but those of 
specie-paying banks was already prohibited by statute. 
The President doubtless had good reason to believe that 
there were no longer any specie-paying banks : he would 
assure the Treasury of sound money by confining the 
receipts to gold and silver. This measure, hke the re- 
moval of the deposits, was his own, taken against the 
advice of the cabinet and on his own responsibihty. 

Before the full effects of this violent and arbitrary 
„ „ interference with exchanges could make them- 

Van Buren "^ 

succeeds seives lelt, Jackson's second term of office 
jac son. came to an end, and Van Buren succeeded 
to the presidency. Van Buren was Jackson's own choice 



92 Period of Critical Change. [§§ 47, 48. 

for the succession ; but he came in with a much reduced 
following, and received from his predecessor a heritage 
of bad policy which was to overwhelm him. His majority 
in the electoral college was forty-six, as against Jackson's 
majority of one hundred and fifty-nine four years before ; 
his popular majority, 25,000, as against a plurality of 
157,000 for Jackson. He did not lead, or constitute, a 
party as Jackson did, and he seemed deliberately to 
accept a sort of subordination, so cordially and appar- 
ently unreservedly did he commend the presidential 
record of his "illustrious predecessor," alike in what he 
said while the election pended and in the warm phrases 
of his inaugural address. Though in fact ready to act 
with independence and courage, he gave no sign as yet 
of wishing to be thought to be more than Jackson's suc- 
cessor. He was ready, it for the time appeared, to make 
himself responsible for all the effects of the specie cir- 
cular upon the business of the country, and to shoulder, 
besides, the burden of every other mistake Jackson had 
made. 



1836, i837.] Financial Crisis, 93 



CHAPTER IV. 

ADMINISTRATION OF VAN BUREN (1837-1841). 

48. Financial Crisis (1837). 

The financial storm had already fairly begun to break 
upon the country when Van Buren assumed the chief 
Commercial post of the federal government. Business 
crisis. ^^g already upon the threshold of the crisis 

of 1837. The volume of paper currency which had gone 
West for the purchase of lands was thrown back upon 
the East for redemption, or to add still further to the 
plethora of circulation already existing there. Credit 
had received a stunning blow, under which it first stag- 
gered, and then fell. There was a sudden rise in prices. 
There had been a very rapid increase in the amount of 
imports since 1832, and considerable sums of specie had 
been sent abroad to meet balances. Flour rose from five 
dollars (1834) to eleven dollars per barrel (1837); corn 
from fifty-three cents to one dollar and fifteen cents per 
bushel. In February and March, 1837, there were bread 
riots in New York. The banks were everywhere driven 
to a suspension of specie payments, the deposit banks 
going down with the rest, in May. On May 15 the Pres- 
ident called an extra session of Congress, for the first 
Monday in September, to consider measures of relief. 

So far as he himself was concerned, the President 
evidently did not believe that relief should be sought in 
Policy of an abandonment of the policy of the specie 
Van Buren. circular. He himself issued a circular of 
similar import with regard to the transactions of the 



94 Period of Critical Change, [§§ 48, 49 

Post Office Department ; and when Congress met he had 
no suggestion of retreat to make. Silas Wright of New 
York was the authoritative spokesman of the adminis- 
tration. He had hinted at the advisability of a currency 
wholly metallic in 1834, in the debates which followed 
the removal of the deposits ; and now that Van Buren was 
at the head of the government, a party emerged from be- 
hind Jackson as the advocate of a stubborn adherence 
to the policy of " hard money." Of this party Silas 
Wright was one of the conspicuous leaders. Congress 
had tried to effect a repeal of Jackson's specie circular in 
its session of 1836-183 7. Calhoun had declined to vote 
on the bill, on the ground that he believed the state of the 
currency to be " almost incurably bad, so that it was very 
doubtful whether the highest skill and wisdom could re- 
store it to soundness. An explosion he considered inev- 
itable, and so much the greater the longer it should be 
delayed." And this seems to have been the feehng of 
the administration. Better insist on the specie circular, 
and bring on the revolution, than try to postpone it by 
makeshifts. 

This was the negative side of the policy of this new 
political combination. It had also positive proposals to 
Sub-Treas- niake. It suggested a complete divorce of the 
ury scheme, government from the banks, and proposed that 
this divorce should be effected by leaving the revenues 
of the government in the hands of the collecting offi- 
cers, to be disbursed, transferred, and accounted for by 
them under bonds of sufficient amount to secure their 
fidelity. This was not a plan to regulate the currency 
or to relieve the financial distress. It was purely ad- 
ministrative in character, meant to save the govern- 
ment from loss, and to secure it against embarrassment 
by separating its affairs entirely from the hazards of 
banliiing. The Senate accepted these proposals, even 



1836-1840.] Banking Reform. 95 

adding a clause directing that all dues to the government 
should be paid in gold and silver ; but the House tabled 
the measure. The four years of Van Buren's adminis- 
tration were spent in a persistent effort to get this bill 
through Congress. There were strong forces working 
for it, though they would seem not to have been forces of 
party principle so much as influences of individual opinion. 
Men like Benton, for whom the policy of the government 
in respect of the public lands had a vitality of interest 
such as it did not possess for the public men of the 
East, felt very keenly the need for some such heroic rem- 
edy for speculation as Jackson's circular supplied ; men 
like Calhoun saw no use in trying to amend the bank 
system, and thought the maladies of the currency in- 
curable except by acute suffering and a thorough natural 
purging of all morbid humors. Jackson, probably at Ben- 
ton's suggestion, had committed his party to a definite 
course ; Van Buren meant to follow him consistently in 
what he had done ; and the party leaders had nothing else 
to suggest. 

49. Banking Reform (1837-1841). 

The only group of politicians, apparently, which then 
knew its own mind with reference to financial policy was 
"Loco-foco" i^ade up of those Democrats, originally a 
principles. local faction in New York and dubbed " Loco- 
focos," who thought that they detected the chief danger 
in the corruption incident upon the granting of bank 
charters in the States, and in the folly of the unlimited 
powers of note-issue conferred by those charters. They 
plainly avowed their " unqualified hostility to bank notes 
and paper money as a circulating medium" and to all 
special grants of incorporation by state legislatures. 
They mustered strong enough to exercise a very con- 
siderable influence uoon the state elections in New 



g6 Period of Critical Change, [§§ 49> so. 

York; the President, Silas Wright, and Senator Benton, 
although not openly of their party, practically entertained 
their principles ; and when they presently disappeared 
within the general body of the Democratic party, it was 
rather because they had drawn it to themselves than 
because it had absorbed or defeated them. 

The " Loco-foco " principles, indeed, were symptomatic 
of a common movement of opinion. Some efforts towards 
New York the reform of the banking system had already 
safety fund, been made in New York, and it is noteworthy 
that Van Buren had played a very wise and intelligent 
part in what had been attempted there. It was in accord- 
ance with suggestions contained in his message to the 
legislature of New York as governor, in 1829, that the 
"safety-fund" law had been passed, which required all 
the banks which had been chartered by the State to 
pay into the state treasury a certain percentage of their 
capital stock to serve as a fund out of which the liabili- 
ties of any of them that might fail should be made good. 
The deposit required proved too small, and a different 
system was presently found preferable ; but the safety-fund 
was the beginning of reform. 

In 1838 New York established a " free-banking " sys- 
tem, which set the fashion of reform elsewhere, and 
New York which, as Subsequently amended, served as a 
free banking, model for the excellent federal banking law 
of 1863. Under this system the practice of granting 
special charters was abandoned ; it was to be free to any 
persons to form a banking company who should conform 
to the requirements of the Act, the leading and most 
important requirement being that each company should 
deposit securities with the State to the full amount of its 
circulating notes. Other States, sooner or later, entered 
upon the same line of policy. The follies and disasters 
of unregulated banking were at last telling upon the 



1840.] The Independent Treasury. 97 

minds of legislators ; and New York, the most party- 
ridden of States, led in the reform. 



50. The Independent Treasury (1840)« 

Again' and again did the administration party press 
the " Independent Treasury " scheme upon Congress : 
Financial three times was it adopted by the Senate and 
distress. rejected by the House. On the fourth trial it 

passed both houses, and became law July 4, 1840. Mean- 
time nothing positive had been done for the relief of the 
financial distress of the country, and nothing perma- 
nent for the relief of the Treasury. The failure of the 
deposit banks, coming at the same time with the distribu- 
tion of the surplus among the States, had brought actual 
pecuniary distress upon the government. Twice was it 
necessary, accordingly, to authorize the issue of Treasury 
notes. In the interval between the suspension of the 
banks of deposit and the determination by Congress of 
the policy of the Treasury in the matter of the custody 
of the revenues, a sort of extra-legal independent treasury 
arrangement had been inevitable ; there was no safe place 
of deposit provided, and the moneys collected had to 
be retained by the Treasury agents. 

The Independent Treasury Act, as finally passed, 
"directed rooms, vaults, and safes to be provided for 
the Treasury, in which the public money 
should be kept ; provided for four receivers- 
general, at New York, Boston, Charleston, and St. 
Louis, and made the United States Mint and the branch 
mint at New Orleans places of deposit ; directed the 
treasurers of the United States and of the mints, the 
receivers-general, and all other officers charged v/ith 
the custody of pubHc money, to give proper bonds for its 
care and for its transfer when ordered by the Secretary 

7 



98 Period of Critical Change, [§§ 50, 51. 

of the Treasury or Postmaster-General; and enacted that 
after June 30, 1843, all payments to or by the United 
States should be in gold and silver exclusively." The 
system was to be presently repealed, for Van Buren and 
his party were to suffer immediate and overwhelming de- 
feat ; but it was to be restored, and was to become the 
permanent system of federal financial administration. 

From the very first, all popular influences in politics 
v/ent against Van Buren. The whole " bank war " had 
Unpopularity Served to deepen the impression that Congress 
of Van Buren. g^^d the Federal Government as a whole was in 
some very direct way responsible for the financial condi- 
tion of the country. Jackson's bank veto and his removal 
of the deposits had killed the Bank of the United States, 
against the protests of Congress ; his transference of the 
public moneys to the state banks had led to the multipli- 
cation of local banking companies and the still more 
unhealthy stimulation of speculation ; and then, after os- 
tentatiously trusting the local banks, he had at a single 
wanton blow destroyed them, and with them all credit, by 
his specie circular. And now his successor would mend 
nothing, would propose nothing, except that the govern- 
ment take care of itself by keeping its own moneys, and 
have nothing whatever to do with any banks at all. 
Those of his party, the while, who said anything distinctly, 
said that gold and silver must be the currency of the 
country, at a time when there was no gold or silver to be 
had. As for the people, they still believed in legislative 
panaceas for pecuniary distress, and were beyond meas- 
ure exasperated with the administration. 

51. The Democrats discredited (1840). 

There were other causes of irritation, other influences 
of alienation, too, between the government and the people. 



1840.] The Democrats discredited. 99 

The policy of arbitrary removals and partisan appoint- 
ments which Jackson had adopted had early borne its nat- 
ural fruit; but its demoralizing results were 
the "^SpoUs not fully disclosed until the administration of 
System." ^^ ill-fated Van Buren. Then many serious 
cases of mismanagement, jobbery, peculation, and fraud 
were discovered, and the particulars made public. Van 
Buren seems to have sought no concealments, to have 
made no effort to shield any offender; but he got no 
credit for his uprightness, — he only received blame for 
the establishment of a system which had made such de» 
moralization of the civil service inevitable. It was com- 
monly believed that he had been chiefly instrumental in 
importing the " spoils system " of New York politics into 
the national administration ; for he had been one of the 
most influential members of that " Albany Regency " 
which had so long and so successfully controlled the pub- 
lic patronage in New York, and he was known to have 
been the leading spirit of Jackson's administration. The 
Van Buren's suspicion was unjust. Van Buren had used the 
lesponsibility. patronage in New York, but he had not fos- 
tered the misuse of it. He had acquiesced in Jackson's 
methods, as did all who served Jackson ; but he had not 
introduced these methods, and he had done something to 
discountenance their employment in his own Department 
so long as he remained a member of the cabinet, — 
as much, doubtless, as his too diplomatic nature permit- 
ted. But the suspicion, although unjust, was natural, 
was universal, was ineradicable. It damaged him as 
much in the general esteem as if it had rested upon 
demonstration. 

Every question that arose seemed to bring with it 
Other causes some loss of prestige for the administration, 
ofirritation. ^ small but earnest and intense anti-slavery 
party had been growing and agitating since 1831. Undei 



lOO Period of Critical Change. [§51. 

the influence of the feeling it had aroused, Congress was 
deluged with anti-slavery petitions, chiefly aimed at slavery 
and the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and the 
Democratic party had discredited itself by refusing to 
hear any petitions on the subject. In the closing months 
of 1835 Texas had declared her independence of Mexico, 
and the next year Jackson accorded her diplo- 

Texas. J j r- 

matic recognition. Now she was manoeuvring 
for admission into the Union, with all the southern in- 
terest behind her. Northern men thought with alarm of 
her vast territory, out of which five slave States might be 
made ; anti-slavery feeling was intense against any deal- 
ings or parleyings with her at all. Van Buren dechned 
overtures of annexation, and declared the neutrality of 
the United States as between Texas and Mexico; but he 
did it, as he did all things, mildly and with prudent re- 
serve, and was thought by his opponents to do it against 
his secret desire in the matter. 

He handled with prudence and good judgment the 
troubles which had arisen upon the northeast frontier 
because of a boundary dispute with England, 
complicated by an insurrection in Canada and 
by lawless attempts on the part of citizens of the United 
States to assist the insurgents ; but he exasperated the 
men concerned by his justice towards the rights of Eng- 
land. It was under his administration that the last war 
with the Seminole Indians of Florida was 
brought to a close ; but it was a costly and 
cruel business, and, like other things, brought only criti- 
cism to the President and his advisers. These things 
might have been viewed more justly had the country not 
been passing through the fires of a prolonged financial 
Popular crisis, and had it not seemed to find in the ad- 

feeling. ministration, not only an unwillingness to do 

anything to relieve the distress which Jackson had caused, 



1840] The Democrats discredited. loi 

but obduracy and insensibility in its stubborn pursuit of 
its single policy of an independent Treasury and hard 
money for the general government, with or without a 
banking system and a practicable currency for the peo- 
ple. Van Buren unquestionably showed throughout a fine 
courage and a certain elevation of view ; but he was not 
imperative or impressive, as Jackson was. The country 
[ had made up its mind that he was a small, selfish, inca- 
' pable politician, and it judged him accordingly. 

Throughout i:he four years of the administration the 
influence of the Whigs grew apace. Again and again 
they carried States which had been of the Jackson follow- 
ing. In 1838 they elected William H. Seward, their can- 
didate for governor, in Van Buren's own State of New 
York, by a majority of ten thousand. For 
campaign of the Campaign of 1840 they again nominated 
1840. General William Henry Harrison for Presi- 

dent, as they had done four years before, and John Tyler 
of Virginia for Vice-President. The Democrats nom- 
inated Van Buren and Johnson. General Harrison had 
served the country honorably both in civil and in military- 
capacities, was well known, and had, moreover, a cer- 
tain homely modesty and candor which commended him 
to the mass of plain men. His party proclaimed no prin- 
ciples except opposition to Van Buren and the Demo- 
crats. But this was enough. After a campaign of 
unparalleled excitement and enthusiasm, Harrison was 
elected by two hundred and thirty-four electoral votes, 
to sixty for his opponent, carrying nineteen States, as 
against seven for Van Buren; although his plurality was 
less than one hundred and fifty thousand in a total vote 
of nearly two millions and a half. The Whigs, too, were 
to have a majority of forty-seven in the House, and of 
seven in the Senate. 



102 Period of Critical Change, [§52. 

52. A New Era of Material Development (1830-1840). 

The bold directness and almost lawless energy of 
Jackson's character were the more appreciated by his 
contemporaries because they seemed to epitomize the 
active spirit of personal initiative which quickened the 
whole country in his day. The decade 1 830-1 840 wit- 
nessed the beginnings of an industrial revolution in the 

United States. Railways began to be built. 

The railway map of the United States in 1830 
shows four short roads, with an aggregate length of 
twenty-three miles; on the map of 1840 there are hues 
representing an aggregate railway mileage of two thou- 
sand eight hundred and eighteen. These were small be- 
ginnings, but deeply significant of what was to come. 
The railway mileage of the country was to double there- 
after every five years until the period of the Civil War. 
Steamboats multiplied with great rapidity upon the wes- 
tern rivers and on the Lakes, in response to the impulse 
which was being given to movements of population. The 
Steam nav- navigation of the ocean by vessels propelled 
igation. \yj steam had become an established success 

by 1838, the utilization of anthracite coal in the produc- 
tion of steam (1836) and the invention of the screw-pro- 
peller (1836-38) contributing not a little to the result. 

On every side mechanical invention was busy. 

Anthracite coal was successfully employed in 
the manufacture of iron in 1836, Nasmyth's steam-ham- 
mer was invented in 1838. The McCormick reaper, in- 
vented in 1834, at once simplified the cultivation of large 
farms with a small force of laborers, and assured the 
development of the great grain lands of the Northwest. 
Even friction matches, invented in 1829, ought to be 
mentioned, as removing one of the minor inconveniences 
of a civilization demanding all the light it could get. 



1S30-1840.] Material Development. loj 

This rapid multiplication and diversification of labor- 
saving machinery effected a radical change in economic 
and social conditions. While railways were to extend 
population, manufacturing industries were to compact it. 
The homely, rural nation which in 1828 chose 

Changes m . , t i i • t-. • i 

manners and Andrew JacKSOU to DC its President, was now 
industry. about to producc a vast and complex urban 
civilization. Its old habits were to be thoroughly broken 
up. Its railw^ays v/ere to produce a ceaseless movement 
of population, section interchanging people v/ith section, 
the whole country thrown open to be visited easily and 
quickly by all who chose to travel, local prejudices dis- 
lodged by familiar knowledge of men and affairs else' 
where ; opinions, manners, purposes made common and 
alike throughout great stretches of the land by reason of 
constant intercourse and united effort. The laboring 
classes, who had hitherto worked chiefly upon their own 
initiative and responsibility, were now to be drawn to- 
gether into great factories, to be directed by others, the 
captains of industry, so that dangerous contrasts both of 
fortune and of opportunity should presently be created 
between capitalist and employee. Individual enterprise 
and simple partnerships were to give place on all hands 
to corporations. The first signs of a day of 

Corporations. •,■>•,- 1 • ,• i r 1 

capitalistic combinations and or monopoly on 
the great scale began to become visible, and it is note- 
worthy that Jackson, with his instinctive dread of the bank 
monopoly, was one of the first to perceive them. The na- 
tion, hitherto singularly uniform in its conditions of life, 
exhibiting almost everywhere equal opportunities of suc- 
cess, few large fortunes, and an easy livelihood for all who 
were industrious, was now about to witness sudden enor- 
mous accumulations of wealth, to perceive sharp contrasts 
between poverty and abundance, an ominous breaking up 
of economic levels. The aggregate material power of 



104 Period of Critical Change. [§§52-54- 

the country was to be greatly increased ; but individual 
opportunity was to become unequal, society was to ex- 
change its simple for a complex structure, fruitful of new 
problems of life, full of new capacities for disorder and 
disease. 

It is during this decade, accordingly, that labor organi- 
zations first assume importance in the United States, in 
Labor organ- Opposition to "capital, banks, and monopo- 
izations. Hes." During the financial distresses of the 

period, when every hardship of fortune was accentuated, 
strikes, mobs, and riots became frequent, and spoke of a 
general social ferment. 

53. Economic Changes and the South (1829-1841). 

The rapid material development of the period had, 
moreover, this profound political significance, that it has- 
tened the final sharp divergence between the 
veiopment of North and the South. When it is considered 
t le nation. ^^^ ^^ power of Steam upon iron rails and in 
the water, and the multiplied forces of industry created by 
invention in aid of the mechanic arts, meant the accelera- 
ted growth of the West, a still more rapid development 
and diversification of the undertakings of manufacture, a 
still huger volume and a still quicker pace for commerce, 
and that in almost none of these things did the South as 
a section have any direct share whatever, it will be seen 
how inevitable it was that political dissension should fol- 
low such an economic separation. The South of course 
The South made large contributions out of her wealth 
and the West ^ca^ her population to the development of the 
West; but this movement of southern people did not ex- 
tend the South into the West. The southerner mixed in 
the new country with men from the other sections, and 
their habits and preferences insensibly affected his own 



1S29-1841.] Structure of Southern Society. 105 

He was forced either to adopt ways of life suitable to the 
task of subduing a new soil and establishing new commu- 
nities under novel conditions, or to give over competing 
for a hold upon the West. He was in most sections of 
the new territory, moreover, hindered by federal law from 
employing slave labor. In spite of all preferences or pre- 
possessions, he ceased to be a southerner, and became a 
" westerner ; " and the South remained a peculiar section, 
with no real prospect of any territorial addition, except on 
the side of Texas, 



54. Structure of Southern Society (1829-1841). 

The existence of slavery in the South fixed classes 
there in a hard crystallization, and rendered it impossible 
Social effect that the industrial revolution, elsewhere work- 
of slavery. jj^g changes SO profound, should materially 
affect the structure of her own society. Wherever slaves 
perform all the labor of a community, and all free men re- 
frain, as of course, from the meaner sorts of work, a stub- 
born pride of class privilege will exist, and a watchful 
jealousy of interference from any quarter, either with that 
privilege itself or with any part of the life which environs 
and supports it. Wherever there is a vast multitude of 
slaves, said Burke, with his habitual profound insight into 
political forces, " those who are free are by far the most 
proud and jealous of their freedom. Freedom is to them 
not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank and privilege. 
Not seeing there that freedom, as in countries where it is 
a common blessing, and as broad and general as the air, 
may be united with much abject toil, with great misery, 
with all the exterior of servitude, liberty looks, amongst 
them, like something that is more liberal and noble. I do 
not mean to commend the superior morality of this senti- 
ment, which has at least as much pride as virtue in it ; 



io6 Period of Critical Change, [§54. 

but . . . the fact is so. . . . In such a people the haughti- 
ness of domination combines with the spirit of freedom, 
fortifies it, and renders it invincible." Southern society 
Resistance 1^^^ from the first resolutely, almost passion- 
to change, ately, resisted change. It steadily retained 
the same organization, the same opinions, and the same 
political principles throughout all the period of seventy- 
two years that stretched from the establishment of the 
federal government to the opening of the war for its 
preservation. 

The structure of southern society unquestionably 
created an aristocracy, but not such an ajustocracy as 
Southern the world had seen before. It was, so to say, 
aristocracy. ^ democratic aristocracy. It did not create 
a system which jeoparded liberty among those who were 
free, or which excluded democratic principles from the 
conduct of affairs. It was an aristocracy, not of blood, 
but of influence, and of influence exercised among 
equals. It was based upon wealth, but not upon the use 
of wealth. Wealth gave a man broad acres, numerous 
slaves, an easy, expansive hfe of neighborly hospitality, 
position, and influence in his county, and, if he chose to 
extend it, in his State; but power consisted of oppor- 
tunity, and not of the pressure of the wealthy upon the 
poor, the coercive and corrupting efficacy of money. It 
was, in fact, not a money wealth : it was not founded 
upon a money economy. It was a wealth of resource 
and of leisured living. 

The life of a southern planter was in no sense a life of 
magnificence or luxury. It was a life of simple and 
plain abundance: a life companioned with 
imp e 1 e. t^^^^^ ^q^ infrequently, oftentimes ornamented 
with household plate and handsome family portraits ; but 
there was none of the detail of luxury. A generous 
plenty of the larger necessaries and comforts and a leis- 



1S29-1S41.] Structiwe of Southern Society. 107 

ure simply employed, these were its dominant features. 
There was little attention to the small comforts which we 
call conveniences. There were abounding hospitality 
and generous intercourse ; but the intercourse was free, 
unstudied in its manners, straightforward, hearty, uncon- 
strained, and full of a truly democratic instinct and sen.' 
timent of equality. Many of the most distinguished 
southern families were without ancient lineage ; had 
gained position and influence by their own honorable 
successes in the New World ; and the small farmer, as 
well as the great planter, enjoyed full and unquestioned 
membership in the free citizenship of the State. 

As Burke said, all who were free enjoyed rank, and 
title to be respected. There was a body of privileged 
persons, but it could scarcely be called a class, for it em- 
braced all free men of any substance or thrift. Of 
course not all of southern society was rural. There was 
the population of the towns, the lawyers and doctors and 
tradesmen and master mechanics, among whom the pro- 
fessional men and the men of culture led and in a sense 
controlled, but where the mechanic and the tradesman 
also had full political privilege. The sentiments that 
characterized the rural population, however, also pene- 
trated and dominated the towns. There was throughout 

. . southern society something like a reproduc- 

°' ^"^* tion of that solidarity of feeling and of in- 
terest which existed in the ancient classical republics, 
set above whose slaves there was a proud but various 
democracy of citizenship and privilege. Such was the 
society which, by the compulsion of its own nature, had 
always resisted change, and was to resist it until change 
and even its own destruction were forced upon it by war. 

Although the population of the country increased in 
the decade 1830-1840 from thirteen to seventeen millions, 
and although immigration trebled between 1830 and 1837, 



io8 Period of Critical Change. [§§ 54, 55. 

the population of the older southern States increased 
scarcely at all. In 1830 Virginia had 1,211,405 inhab- 
itants; in 1840, 1,239,797. In 1830 South Car- 
opuation. ^Yv[iz. had 581,000; in 1840, 594,000. North 
Carolina had 737,000 in 1830, 753,000 in 1840. Georgia 
had done better : had increased her population by more 
than one hundred and seventy-four thousand, and had 
gone up from tenth to ninth place in the ranking of the 
States by population. Mississippi and Alabama had 
grown like the frontier States they were. The increase 
of population in the northern States had in almost every 
case been very much greater; while an enormous growth 
had taken place in the West. Ohio almost doubled her 
population, and Indiana quite doubled hers. Two new 
States also were admitted, — Arkansas in June, 1836, 
and Michigan in January, 1837. 



55. An Intellectual Awakening (1829-1841). 

The same period witnessed a very notable development 
in the intellectual life and literary activity of the country. 
The world's ^^ was a time when the world at large was 
movement, quivering under the impact of new forces, 
both moral and intellectual. The year 1830 marks not 
only a period of sharp political revolution in Europe, 
but also a season of awakened social conscience every- 
where. Nowhere were the new forces more profoundly 
felt than in England, where political progress has always 
managed to be beforehand with revolution. In 1828 the 
Corporation and Test Acts were repealed; in 1829 
Catholic emancipation was effected; in 1832 the first 
reform bill was passed ; in 1833 slavery was abolished 
throughout the British Empire; in 1834 the system of 
poor relief was reformed; in 1835 the long needed re- 
constitution of the government of municipal corpora- 



1829-1840.] An Intellectual Awakening. 109 

tions was accomplished ; and in 1836 the Act for the 
commutation of tithes was adopted. Everywhere phil- 
anthropic movements showed the spirit of the age ; and 
in these movements the United States were particularly 
_ . , forward: for their liberal constitutions had al- 

Social re- 
forms in ready secured the political changes with which 

menca. foreign nations were busy. Americans were 
among the first to undertake a serious and thorough- 
going reform of the system of prison discipline. It was 
the fame of the new penitentiary system of the United 
States that brought De Tocqueville and Beaumont to this 
country in 183 1, on that tour which gave us the inimit- 
able " Democracy in America." In the same year 
William Lloyd Garrison established his celebrated paper, 
"The Liberator," and the anti-slavery movement as- 
sumed a new shape, to which additional importance was 
given in 1833 by the formation of the Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety. Everywhere a new thoughtful ness and humanity 
entered into legislation, purging institutions of old 
wrongs, enlarging the views of statesmen and the liber- 
ties of the people. The general spiritual ferment mani- 
fested itself in such religious movements as that which 
came to be known as Transcendentalism ; in such social 
schemes as those of Robert Owen and the distinguished 
group of enthusiasts who established Brook Farm ; in 
a child-like readiness on the part of all generous or im- 
aginative minds to accept any new fad of doctrine that 
promised plausibly the regeneration of society. 

It was to be expected that an age in which both the 

minds and the hearts of men were being subjected to new 

excitements and stirred to new energies should 

W Gw writers. 

see new life enter also into literature. A whole 
generation of new writers of originality and power, accord- 
ingly, came suddenly into prominence in this decade. 
Hawthorne began to publish in 1828, Poe in 1829, Whit- 



no Period of Critical Change, l§§55, 5Q 

tier in 1831, Longfellow in 1833, Bancroft in 1834, Emer- 
son and Holmes in 1836. Prescott was already giving 
promise of what he was to do in his essays in the " North 
American Review." It was just without this decade, in 
1 841, that Lowell's first volume of youthful poems was 
given to the public. Law writings, too, were being pub- 
lished which were to become classical. Kent's " Com- 
mentaries on American Law" appeared between 1826 and 
1830; Mr. Justice Story began to publish in 1833, ^^td by 
1838 had practically completed his great contributions to 
legal literature ; Wheaton's " Elements of International 
Law " was published in 1836. Professor Lieber put forth 
his first works upon the theory of law and politics in 1838. 
Henry C. Carey's "Rate of Wages" appeared in 1835, 
and his " Principles of Political Economy " between 
1837 and 1840. These were the years also of Audubon's 
contributions to natural history, and of Asa Gray's first 
essays in botany. In 1838 James Smithson provided the 
endowment of the Smithsonian Institution. 

All this meant something besides a general quickening 
i)f thought. America was beginning to have a little more 
leisure. As the material resources of the 
eastern States multiplied, and wealth and for- 
tune became more diffused and common, classes slowly 
came into existence who were not wholly absorbed by 
the struggle for a livelihood. There began to be time 
for the cultivation of taste. A higher standard of com- 
fort and elegance soon prevailed, of which books were 
a natural accompaniment. Miss Martineau did not find 
European culture in the United States when she visited 
them in 1834, but she found almost universal intelligence 
and an insatiable intellectual curiosity. Native writers 
embodied the new ideals of the nation, and spoke a new 
and whimsical wit. The country brought forth its own 
historians and story-tellers, as well as its own mystics, 



1829-1841.] An Intellectual Awakening. 11 1 

like Emerson, and its own singers to a cause, like Whit- 
tier. " You are a new era, my man, in your huge country," 
wrote Carlyle to Emerson. 

Newspapers, too, began to take on a new form. The 

life of the nation had grown too hasty, too various and 

complex, too impatient to know the news and 

Newspapers. , „ . . , 

to canvass all new opmions, to put up any 
longer with the old and cumbersome sheets of the style 
inherited from colonial times. Papers like the " Sun " 
and the " Herald" were established in New York, which 
showed an energy and shrewdness in the collection of 
news, and an aggressiveness in assuming the leadership 
in opinion, that marked a revolution in journalism. They 
created the omnipresent reporter and the omniscient edi- 
tor who now help and hinder, stimulate and exasperate, 
us so much. It was a new era, and all progress had 
struck into a new pace. 

56. The Extension of the SuflPrage. 

In the colonies the suffrage had very commonly been 
based upon a freehold tenure of property; and where no 
property qualification existed, it was custom- 
ary to hmit the suffrage to those who were 
tax-payers. In most of the older States such regulations 
had survived the Revolution. But nowhere did they very 
Influences of lo'^g remain. The new States forming in the 
extension. Wcst bid for population by offering unlimited 
political privileges to all comers ; cities grew up in which 
wealth was not landed, but commercial ; French doctrines 
of the " rights of man " crept in through the phrases of 
the Declaration of Independence ; demagogues, too, be- 
came ready to offer anything for votes in the "fierce 
competition of parties careful for the next election, if 
neglectful of the next generation ; " and so everywhere. 



112 , , Period of Critical Change. [§§56,57. 

except in the South, a broad manhood suffrage presently 
came to prevail. By the close of Jackson's second term 
no northern State retained any property restriction ex- 
cept Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, and'no 
western State except Ohio. 



57. The Re-formation of Parties (1829-1841). 

Parties had taken form again while Jackson reigned. 
It was not easy to see the Democratic party as a whole 
Jackson's while Jackson was President. His person- 
influence, aii^y ^^g ^QQ dominant, and the influences of 
the time were too personal, too complex, too obscure, to 
make it possible to say with confidence just how much of 
the policy of the administration was Jackson's own, just 
how much suggested to him by those who enjoyed his 
friendship. When Van Buren becomes President, how- 
ever, the party emerges from behind Jackson ; Van Buren's 
figure hides no other man's ; and we see, by reading 
backwards, that a party of definite principles had for 
some time been forming. 

We perceive that some of the measures of Jackson's time 
were his own, but that the objects aimed at were not his 
The Demo- alone, but those of a group of party leaders 
crats. ^i^Q stood behind him : Van Buren, Taney, 

Benton, Woodbury, Cass, and others ; the group for 
which Silas Wright spoke in Congress when he intro- 
duced the Independent Treasury plan. These men would 
have destroyed the United States Bank, but they would 
never have originated the plan for removing the deposits ; 
they wished to see a currency of gold and silver take the 
place of a currency of depreciated paper, but none of 
them, except perhaps Benton, would have hazarded so bru- 
tal a measure as the specie circular. The principles of this 
new party were simple and consistent ; and Van Buren'sf 



1829-1841] Re-formation of Parties, 113 

administration showed with how much courage they were 
prepared to insist upon them and carry them into execu- 
tion. These principles embraced a conservative construc- 
tion of the Constitution and a scrupulous regard for the 
limitations of the powers of Congress. They therefore ex- 
cluded the policy of internal improvements, the policy of 
interference with the business development of the country 
by means of protective tariffs, the policy of chartering a 
national bank, and everything that looked like a trespass 
on the reserved rights of the States. This party wished 
to see the Treasury divorced from all connection with 
banks ; it believed specie to be the " constitutional cur- 
rency " of the country ; it desired to see as much economy 
and as little governing as possible. 

Until 1834, when it had assumed its new name, Whig, 
of conveniently ambiguous significance, the National 
Republican party of Clay and Adams had 
'^^* been too heterogeneous, too little united upon 
common principles, too little prepared to concert common 
measures, to be able to make any headway against the 
popularity of Jackson and the efficient organization of 
Jackson's followers. But by the middle of Jackson's 
second term it had fairly pulled itself together. By that 
time it had drawn several powerful factions to itself in 
the South, and had brought its other adherents to some- 
thing like a common understanding and mutual confi- 
dence upon several important questions of public policy. 
It seemed to speak again with the voice of the old Fed- 
eralists ; for it leaned as a whole towards a liberal con- 
struction of the constitutional powers of Congress ; it 
believed in the efficacy of legislation to effect reforms 
and check disorders in the economic life of the people. 
Its most conspicuous leaders were committed to the 
policy of large expenditures for internal improvements 
and to the policy of protective tariffs ; and it contained; 

8 



114 Period of Critical Change, [§§ 57, 58. 

and for the most part sympathized with, the men who 
had fought for the renewal of the charter of the Bank 
of the United States. 

The only thing that seemed now to imperil the integ- 
rity of parties was the anti-slavery movement. This 
Anti-slavery movement Originated just as Jackson came 
movement. jj^|-q power, had gathered head slowly, and 
had as yet little organic influence in politics. But it was 
steadily gaining a hold upon the minds of individuals and 
upon certain sections of the country ; and it threatened 
the Democratic strength more than it threatened the 
Whig, simply because the Union between the Democrats 
and the South was of longer standing and of greater in- 
timacy than the alliance between the southerners and the 
Whigs. Moreover, the anti-slavery feeling very early be- 
came conspicuous in politics by means of petitions poured 
in upon Congress praying against the slave-trade and 
slavery itself in the District of Columbia, and against the 
slave-trade between the States. The Democrats, under the 
leadership of the southern members, committed the fatal 
strategic blunder of refusing to allow these petitions to be 
read, printed, or referred. This of course gave the Abo- 
litionists an important moral advantage. John Quincy 
Adams, too, was now spokesman for them in Congress. 
He had been sent to the House of Representatives in 
1 831 by the Anti-Masons, and remained there, an irre- 
pressible champion of his own convictions, until 1848. 
Immediately after shutting off anti-slavery petitions Con- 
gress passed an Act in still further defiance of the anti- 
slavery feeling. June 7, 1836, the area of the State of 
Missouri, and therefore of slavery, was considerably in- 
creased to the westward, in direct contravention of the 
Missouri compromise, by adding to it the territory be- 
twe-en its old western frontier and the Missouri. 



1829-1841.] Character of the Period. 115 

58. Character of the Jacksonian Period (1829-1841). 

It is not easy to judge justly the political character of 
this singular period as a whole. That the spoils system 
Political or- o^ appointment to office permanently demoral- 
ganization. jzed our poHtics, and that the financial policy 
of Jackson temporarily ruined the business of the country, 
no one can fail to see ; but who can say that these move- 
ments of reaction against the older scheme of our na- 
tional politics were not inevitable at some point in the 
growth of our restless, raw, and suspicious 
democracy? Jackson certainly embodied the 
spirit of the new democratic doctrines. His presidency 
was a time of riot and of industrial revolt, of brawling 
turbulence in many quarters, and of disregard for law ; 
and it has been said that the mob took its cue from the 
example of arbitrary temperament set it by the President. 
It is, however, more just to see, both in the President 
himself and in the mobs of his time of power, symptoms 
of one and the same thing ; namely, a great democratic up- 
heaval, the wilful self-assertion of a masterful people, and 
The will of o^ ^ man who was their true representative, 
the people, fhe organic popular force in the nation came 
to full self-consciousness while Jackson was President. 
Whatever harm it may have done to put this man into the 
presidency, it did the incalculable good of giving to the 
national spirit its first self-reliant expression of resolution 
and of consentaneous power. 



III. 

THE SLAVERY QUESTION 

(1842-1856). 

59. Keferences. 

Bibliographies. — Lalor's Cyclopaedia, Alexander Johnston's 
articles, "Slavery," "Whig Party," "Democratic Party," "Annexa- 
tions," "Wars," "Wilmot Proviso," "Compromises," "Fugitive 
Slave Laws," "Territories," "Republican Party;" Justin Winsor's 
Narrative and Critical History, vii. pp. 297-310, 323-326, 353-356, 
413 ff., 550 ff. ; W. E, Foster's References to the History of Presiden- 
tial Administrations, 26-40 ; Channing and Hart, Guide to American 
History, §§ 56a, 56b, 189-202. 

Historical Maps. — Nos. i, 2, this volume; Epoch Maps, Nos. 
8, II, 12; MacCoun's Historical Geography of the United States, 
series "National Growth," 1845-1848, 1848-1853, and series "Devel- 
opment of the Commonwealth," 1840, 1850, 1854; Labberton's His- 
torical Atlas, plates Ixix., Ixx, ; Scribner's Statistical Atlas, plates 
15, 16. 

General Accounts. — James F. Rhodes, History of the United 
States from the Compromise of 1850, i., ii. 1-236; Schouler's His- 
tory of the United States, iv. pp. 359 ff., v. to p. 370 ; H. von Hoist's 
Constitutional History of the United States, ii. 371 ff., iii., iv., v., 
vi. 96 ; Carl Schurz's Henry Clay, chaps, xxii.-xxvii. ; Johnston's 
American Politics, chaps, xv.-xviii. ; Channing's Student's History of 
the United States, §§ 296-313 ; Larned's History for Ready Refer- 
ence ; Benton's Abridgement of the Debates of Congress. 

Special Histories. — Ripley's War with Mexico; Stanwood's 
History of Presidential Elections, chaps, xvi.-xix. ; Colton's Life and 
Speeches of Henry Clay ; Stephens's Constitutional View of the War 
between the States ; Greeley's American Conflict, i., chaps, xi.-xx. ; 
W. Goodell's Slavery and Anti-slavery, pp. 143-219, 272 ff.; G. T. 
Curtis's Life of James Buchanan, i. pp. 458-619, ii. pp. 1-186 ; Tyler's 
Lives of the Tylers ; F. W. Seward's Seward at Washington, 1846- 
1861, chaps, i.-xxxviii. ; Hodgson's Cradle of the Confederacy, chaps, 
x.-xiii. ; P. Stovall's Life of Toombs, pp. 1-139; A. M. Williams's 
Sam Houston and the War of Independence in Texas ; Olmsted's 



1841.] Conditiojis f avoidable to Agitation. 117 

Cotton Kingdom ; Draper's History of the Civil War, i., chaps, xxii.. 
XXV. ; E. A. Pollard's Lost Cause, chaps, i.-iv. ; Trent's Life of W. 
G. Simms ; Sato's Land Question in the United States (Johns Hop- 
kins University Studies), pp. 61-69; Taussig's Tariff History of the 
United States, pp. 109-154; Garrisons' (W. P. and F.J.) Life of 
William Lloyd Garrison. 

Contemporary Accounts. — Benton's Thirty Years' View, ii. 
209 ff. (to 1850) ; Sargent's Public Men and Events, ii., chaps, vi.-ix. 
(to 1853); Olmsted's Cotton Kingdom; Personal Memoirs of U. S. 
Grant; Clay's Private Correspondence; Webster's Private Correspon- 
dence ; McCuUoch's Men and Measures of Half a Century ; G. W. 
Curtis's Correspondence of J. L. Motley; F. W. Seward's Seward : An 
Autobiography, chaps, xxxiii.-lxvi. ; Chevalier de Bacourt's Souvenirs 
of a Diplomat (temp. Van Buren, Harrison, and Tyler) ; Hern don's 
Life of Lincoln, chaps, ix.-xii.; Thurlow Weed's Autobiography, 
chaps, xlviii.-lxi. 



CHAPTER V. 
THE SLAVERY SYSTEM. 

60. Conditions favorable to Agitation. 

So many and so various were the forces which were 
operative during the period of Jackson's presidency, and 
Agitation SO much did a single issue, the financial, 
and change, dominate all others during the administration 
of Van Buren, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to 
take accurately the measure of the times, to determine 
its principal forces, or to separate what is accidental in it 
from what is permanent and characteristic. During 
Jackson's eight years everything is changing; both society 
and politics are undergoing revolution; deep organic pro- 
cesses are in progress ; significant atmospheric changes 
are setting in. The agitation has by no means ceased 
when Van Buren becomes President, but it manifests 
itself for the time being almost exclusively in profound 



Ii8 The Slavery Question. [§§6o, 6i. 

financial disorders, from which there is slow and painful 
recuperation. It is only after the first stages of the 
revolutionary ferment of this initial decade of the new 
democracy are passed that the permanent effects begin 
to show themselves. Then it is that the old phrases and 
costumes of our politics disappear, and the stage is cleared 
for the tragedy of the slavery question. 

No one can contemplate the incidents of the presi- 
d3ntial campaign of 1840 without becoming aware how 
much the whole atmosphere of national politics has 
changed since the old line of Presidents was broken, and 
a masterful frontiersman, type of a rough and ready 
democracy, put at the head of affairs. The Whigs, the 
party of conservative tradition and constructive pur- 
^ poses in legislation, put General Harrison for- 

campaign ward as their candidate because, he is a plain 
^^^ ° ^' man of the people ; they play to the common- 
alty by means of picturesque processions and hilarious 
barbecues, proposing the while no policy, but only the 
resolve to put out the pygmy Van Buren and bring the 
country back to safe and simple principles of govern- 
ment, such as a great and free people must always desire. 
They accept the change which Jackson has wrought in 
the methods of politics. 

Parties emerge from the decade 1 830-1 840, in short, 
with methods and standards of action radically changed, 
and with a new internal organization intended to make 
of them effective machines for controlling multitudes of 
votes. The franchise has everywhere throughout the 
country been made practically universal, and the organ- 
ization of parties must be correspondingly wide and 
general, their united exertions correspondingly concerted 
and active. There is a nation to be served, a vast vote 
to be controlled, a multitude of common men to be 
attracted. Hosts must be marshalled by a system of 
discipline. 



1841.] Conditions favorable to Agitation, 1 19 

There is something much more momentous than all 
this, however, in the creation of such a vast and gener- 
alized human force as had now been introduced into our 
national politics The decade 1830-1840 possesses the 
deepest possible political significance, because it brings a 
great national democracy, now at length pos- 
thenewna- sessed in no slight degree of a common or- 
tionai de- p^anic consciousuess and purpose, into the pres- 

mocracy. ° r . i t t 

ence 01 tne slavery controversy. Upon ques- 
tions which seem simple and based upon obvious grounds 
of moral judgment, such a democracy, when once aroused, 
cannot be manipulated by the politician, or even re- 
strained by the constitutional lawyer. The institution of 
slavery, however deeply rooted in the habits of one portion 
of the country, and however solemnly guaranteed under 
the arrangements of the federal system, had in reality 
but a single stable foundation, — the acquiescence of 
national opinion. Every social institution must abide 
by the issue of the two questions, logically distinct but 
practically inseparable: Is it expedient? Is it just.^* 
Let these questions once seriously take hold of the 
public thought in any case which may be made to seem 
simple and devoid of all confusing elements, and the 
issue cannot long remain doubtful. That is what took 
place when a body of enthusiasts, possessed with the 
reforming spirit, took hold of the question of slavery in 
that momentous decade. It was not really a simple ques- 
tion, but it could be made to seem so. 



61. Antecedents of the Anti-Slavery Movement. 

The Abolitionists by no means discovered the slavery 
question, but they succeeded in giving it a practical im- 
portance such as it had never had before. A mild anti- 
slavery sentiment, born of the philanthropic spirit, had 



120 The Slavery Question. [§§61,62. 

existed in all parts of the country from the first. No- 
where were there to be found clearer or more plainly 
spoken condemnations of its evil influence at once upon 
masters and slaves and upon the whole structure and 
spirit of society than representative southern men had 
^ , . uttered. "Slavery," said Georsre Mason of 

Early anti- . . •" ° 

slavery feel- Virgmia, " discourages arts and manufactures. 
i"g- 'j'l-jg poor despise labor when performed by 

slaves. They prevent the immigration of whites, . . . 
they produce a pernicious effect on manners. Every 
master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the 
judgment of Heaven on a country." In the northern 
States, where slaves were comparatively few in number, 
such sentiments had early led to emancipation (Forma- 
tion of the Union, § ^^ ; the system had, therefore, al- 
ready become almost entirely confined to the southern 
States, where slavery seemed more suitable to the climate. 
There, too, the sentiment which had once existed in favor 
of emancipation had given way before grave doubts as to 
the safety of setting free a body of men so large, so igno- 
rant, so unskilled in the moderate use of freedom; and 
had yielded also to paramount considerations of inter- 
est, in the profitable use of slave labor for the production 
of the immense cotton and tobacco crops which made the 
South rich. An African Colonization Society had been 
organized in 1816 for the purpose of assisting free 
negroes to form colonies in Africa, and this society had 
been joined by both friends and opponents of the system 
of slavery (Formation of the Union, § 126). There had 
been plans and promises of gradual emancipation even 
in the South ; and there were doubtless some who still 
hoped to see such purposes some day carried out. 

But these earlier movements, which had kept quietly 
within the limits of law and of tolerant opinion, were 
radically different from the movement which came to 



J777-1833] Anti-Slavery Movement. 121 

a head in the formation of the American Anti-Slavery 

Society in 1833: they can hardly be called even the 

precursors of that movement. It was born 

American ^ 

Anti-Slavery of another spirit. Garrison's " Liberator " 
ociety. demanded the immediate and total abohtion 

of slavery throughout the country, laws and constitu- 
tions to the contrary notwithstanding; and this, with 
some temporary abatements for policy's sake, became 
the programme of the Anti-Slavery Society. The imme- 
diate effects of such a programme were anything but 
favorable to its originators. Many who shared the 
fashion of the age for reform eagerly subscribed to it; 
but it powerfully repelled the mass of the people, ren- 
dered deeply conservative by the inheritance 
pposi ion. ^^j practice of self-government, deeply im- 
bued, like all of their race, with the spirit of political 
compromise, patient of anomalies, good-natured too, 
after the manner of large democracies, and desirous 
always of peace. The responsible classes condemned 
the leaders of the anti-slavery movement as fanatics 
and stirrers up of sedition ; the irresponsible classes 
destroyed their printing-presses, and thought no violence 
too grievous for them. 



62. Occasion of the Anti-Slavery Movement. 

But slowly, almost insensibly, the whole aspect of the 
matter was altered. It is impossible to say what would 
have happened had our system of law been then already 
worked out in all its parts, the full number of States made 
Ouestion of ^P ^^^ closed, our framework of local govern- 
siavery ex- ment Completed. If instead of a vast national 
territory threatened with invasion by the ag- 
gressive slave interest, there had everywhere throughout 
the continent been States with their own fully developed 



122 The Slavery Questiofi. [§§62,63. 

systems of law, and their common pride of independence, 
possibly our national institutional structure would have 
been of too stiff a frame to succumb to revolution. But as 
it was, there were great issues of choice constantly thrust- 
ing themselves forward in national politics with reference 
to this very question of slavery. And the southern lead- 
ers were masterful and aggressive, ruthlessly pressing 
these issues and making them critical party tests. Safely 
intrenched though they were behind the guarantees of 
_ , federal law with regard to the autonomy of 

Southern . , . -hi 

apprehen- their owu States, m this, as in all other ques- 
^'°"^" tions of domestic policy, they had shown from 

the first an instinctive dread of being left in a minority in 
the Senate, where the States were equal. Their actions 
were dictated by an unformulated fear of what legislation 
might do should those who were of their interest fail of a 
decisive influence in Congress. They therefore fought for 
new slave territory, out of which to make new slave States ; 
they insisted that anti-slavery petitions should not be so 
much as discussed in Congress ; and they forced northern 
members to accept the most stringent possible legislation 
with regard to the return of fugitive slaves. At every 
point they forced the fighting, exasperating, instead of 
soothing, the rising spirit of opposition in the North, 
choosing to lose rather by boldness in attack than by 
too great caution in defence. 

These were circumstances extremely favorable to the 
anti-slavery party. The Missouri compromise of 1820 
Anti-slavery showcd that they could count upon a strong 
advantage. sentiment in favor of keeping the major part 
of the national territories free from slavery ; and it was to 
their advantage that the southern leaders should be always 
stirring this sentiment up by their attacks upon the Mis- 
souri arrangement. The practical denial of the right of 
petition in their case by Congress, moreover, gave them 



1776-1844-] Establishment of Slavery. 123 

an advantageous standing as martyrs in a cause as old 
and as sacred as English liberty. They were pressing a 
question upon the public conscience which could be made 
universally intelligible and universally powerful, if not 
irresistible, in its appeal to one of the broadest and most 
obvious of the moral judgments. Their own intense and 
persistent devotion, the hot and indiscreet aggressiveness 
of their opponents, and the intimate connection of the 
question of slavery with every step of national growth, 
gave them an increasing influence, and finally an over- 
whelming victory. 

63. Establishment of the System of Slavery. 

The general merits of the question of slavery in the 
United States, its establishment, its development, its 
Original re- social, political, and economic effects, it is 
sponsibihty. j^q^ possible to discuss without passion. The 
vast economic changes which have taken place in all sec- 
tions of the country since the close of the war have hur- 
ried us almost as far away from the United States in 
which slavery existed as any previous century could have 
carried us. It is but a single generation since the war 
ended, and we retain very intensely our sympathies with 
the men who were the principal actors on the one side or 
the other in that awful struggle ; but doubtless for all of 
us the larger aspects of the matter are now beyond reason- 
able question. It would seem plain, for one thing, that 
the charges of moral guilt for the establishment and per- 
petuation of slavery which the more extreme leaders of 
Moral the anti-slavery party made against the slave- 

question, holders of the southern States must be very 
greatly abated, if they are to be rendered in any sense 
just. Unquestionably most of the colonies would have 
excluded negro slaves from their territory, had the policy 
of England suffered them to do so. The selfish commer 



124 The Slavery Question. [§§63,64. 

cial policy of the mother-country denied them all choice in 

the matter; they were obliged to permit the slave-trade 
and to receive the slaves. , Jefferson's original draft of the 
Declaration of Independence made it one of the chief 
articles of indictment against George the Third that he 
had " prostituted his negative for suppressing every legis- 
lative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable 
commerce." The non-importation covenant which the 
Continental Congress had proposed in October, 1774, in- 
cluded slaves, and had been unanimously adopted by all 
the colonies, thus checking the slave-trade until the forma- 
tion of the Confederation ; and after the formation of the 
new government of the Union, the leading southern States 
of their own accord abolished the slave-trade before the 
year 1808, which the Constitution had fixed as the earliest 
date at which Congress could act in the matter. 

The agricultural system of the South and its climatic 
conditions naturally drew a larger number of slaves to that 
Localization section than to the other parts of the country. 
of slavery. j^ 1 775, upon the eve of the Revolution, there 
were 455,000 slaves in the South, to 46,102 in the North. 
While the Revolution was in progress, a series of inven- 
tions brought the whole modern machinery of cotton man- 
ufacture into existence. Following immediately upon the 
heels of this great industrial change, came Eli Whitney's 
invention of the cotton-gin (1793), which enabled even the 
unskilful slave to cleanse a thousand pounds of cotton of 
its seeds in a single day, instead of five or six pounds, as 
formerly. At once, almost at a single bound, the South 
became the chief cotton field of the world. In 1792, the 
year before Whitney's invention, the export of cotton from 
the United States amounted to only 138,328 
pounds; by 1804 it had swelled to 38,118,041 ; 
and at the time of the first struggle touching the extension 
of slavery (the Missouri compromise), it had risen to 



1776-1844] Establishment of Slavery, 125 

127,860,152, and its value from seven and a half to more 
than twenty-two millions of dollars. Before this tremen- 
dous development of cotton culture had taken place, 
slavery had hardly had more than habit and the perils of 
emancipation to support it in the South: southern life 
and industry had shaped themselves to it, and the slaves 
were too numerous and too ignorant to be safely set free. 
But when the cotton-gin supplied the means of indefinitely 
expanding the production of marketable cotton by the use 
of slave labor, another and even more powerful argument 
for its retention was furnished. After that, slavery seemed 
nothing less than the indispensable economic instrument 
of southern society. 

64. Conditions of Slave Life. 

Of the conditions of slave hfe it is exceedingly difficult 
to speak in general terms with confidence or with accu- 
_. . . racy. Scarcely any generalization that could 
be formed would be true for the whole South, 
or even for all periods alike in any one section of it. 
Slavery showed at its worst where it was most seen by 
observers from the North, — upon its edges. In the 
border States slaves were constantly either escaping or 
attempting escape, and being pursued and recaptured, 
and a quite rigorous treatment of them seemed necessary. 
There was a slave mart even in the District of Columbia 
itself, where Congress sat and northern members ob- 
served. But in the heart of the South conditions were 
Domestic different, were more normal. Domestic slaves 
slaves. were almost uniformly dealt with indulgently 

and even affectionately by their masters. Among those 
masters who had the sensibility and breeding of gentle- 
men, the dignity and responsibility of ownership were apt 
to produce a noble and gracious type of manhood, and 



126 The Slavery Question. [§§64,65. 

relationships really patriarchal. " On principle, in habit, 
and even on grounds of self-interest, the greater part of 
the slave-owners were humane in the treatment of their 
slaves, — kind, indulgent, not over-exacting, and sincerely 
interested in the physical well-being of their dependents," 
— is the judgment of an eminently competent northern 
observer who visited the South in 1844. " Field hands " 
on the ordinary plantation came constantly 

"Field hands." •, ^u • /^ i j: ^ ui 

under their masters eye, were comiortably 
quartered, and were kept from overwork both by their 
own laziness and by the slack discipline to which they 
were subjected. They were often commanded in brutal 
language, but they were not often compelled to obey by 
brutal treatment. 

The negroes suffered most upon the larger properties, 
where they were under the sole direction of hired over- 
seers. It was probably in some of the great 
rice fields of the southern coast, where the 
malarious atmosphere prevented the master from living 
the year around in daily association with his slaves, and 
where, consequently, the negroes were massed in isola- 
tion and in almost inevitable misery, that their lot was 
hardest, their condition most deplorable. The more nu- 
merous the slaves upon any single property, as a rule, the 
smaller their chance of considerate treatment; for when 
they mustered by the hundreds it was necessary to group 
them in separate villages of their own, and to devise a 
discipline whereby to deal with them impersonally and in 
the mass, rather than individually and with discrimination. 
They had to be driven, they could not be individually 
directed. The rigorous drill of an army had to be pre- 
served. Books like Mrs. Stowe's " Uncle Tom's Cabin," 
which stirred the pity and deep indignation of northern 
readers, certainly depicted possible cases of inhuman con- 
duct towards slaves. Such cases there may have been : 



Conditions of Slave Life. 127 

they may even have been frequent; but they were in 
every sense exceptional, showing what the system could 
produce, rather than what it did produce as its character- 
Humane pub- istic spirit and method. For public opinion 
lie opinion. \^ ^j^g South, while it recognized the necessity 
for maintaining the discipline of subordination among 
the hosts of slaves, was as intolerant of the graver forms 
of cruelty as was the opinion of the best people in the 
North. The punishment of the negroes, when severe, 
was in most cases for offences which were in effect petty 
crimes, like the smaller sorts of theft. Each master was 
in practice really a magistrate, possessing a sort of domes- 
tic jurisdiction upon his plantation. 

Probably the most demoralizing feature of the system 
taken as a whole was its effect upon the marriage rela- 
Saie of tion among the negroes. It sometimes hap- 

slaves. pened that husbands were sold away from 

their wives, children away from their parents ; but even 
this evil was in most instances checked by the wisdom 
and moral feeling of the slave-owners. Even in the ruder 
communities public opinion demanded that when negroes 
were sold, families should be kept together, particularly 
mothers and their children. Slave-dealers were univer- 
sally detested, and even ostracised; and the domestic 
slave-trade was tolerated only because it was deemed 
necessary for the economic distribution of the slave 
population. 

65. Economic and Political Effects of Slavery. 

The economic effects of slavery it is not so difficult to 
estimate ; and these told not so much upon the slaves as 
upon the masters. The system of slave-labor 
gric ure. ^Qjj^jgj^j^g^^ i^^ South not Only to remain agri- 
cultural, but also to prosecute agriculture at the cost of a 
tremendous waste of resources. It was impossible in cul- 



128 The Slavery Question. [§§65,66, 

tivating the soil by the work of slaves to employ the best 
processes, or any economical process at all. The system 
almost necessitated large " plantations," for with the sloth- 
ful and negligent slave it was not possible to 

Wasre o o r 

adopt intensive modes of farming. When the 
surface of one piece of land had been exhausted, a new 
piece was taken up, and the first left to recuperate its 
powers. For all the South was agricultural, it contained 
within it a very much larger proportion of unimproved 
land than, did any other section. Its system of labor 
steadily tended to exhaust one of the richest and most 
fertile regions of the continent. 

The system produced, too, one of the most singular 
non-productive classes that any country has ever seen ; 
,^ this was the class known in the South as 
" poor whites." Free, but on that very account 
shut out from laboring for others, both because of the 
pride of freedom and because of the absence of any 
system of hired free labor ; devoid also of the energy 
and initiative necessary to support themselves decently, 
these people subsisted partly by charity, partly by cultivat- 
ing for themselves small patches of waste land. They 
belonged neither to the ruling class nor to the slave class, 
but were despised by both. 

The political effects of slavery upon the South are 
no less marked. Judging from statistics taken about 
The slave- s the middle of the century, only one out of 
owning class, every six of the whi-te men of the South, or, 
at the most, one out of every five, was a slaveholder. 
Of course there were many white men engaged in the 
subordinate functions of commerce or in professional pur- 
suits ; there were many also, doubtless, who had the ser- 
vice of slaves without owning or hiring them in any 
numbers. Statistics of the actual number who owned 
slaves or hired them from their owners cannot furnish us 



Effects of Slavery. ^129 

with any exact statement of the number of those who 
enjoyed social position and influence such as to entitle 
them to be reckoned, in any careful characterization of the 
elements of southern society, as belonging to the slave- 
holding class. But upon whatever basis the estimate be 
made, it is safe to say that less than half the white people 
of the southern States should be classed among those 
who determined the tone and methods of southern poli- 
tics. The ruling class in each State was small, compact, 
and on the whole homogeneous. It was in- 
telligent, alert, and self-conscious. It became 
more and more self-conscious as the anti-slavery agitation 
proceeded. Its feeling of separateness from the other 
sections of the country grew more and more intense, its 
sense of dependence for the preservation of its character 
upon a single fateful institution more and more keen and 
apprehensive. It had, besides, more political power and 
clearer notions of how it meant to use that power than 
any other class in the country. For the Constitution of 
the United States provided that three-fifths of the slaves 
should be added to the whole number of whites in reckon- 
ing the population upon which representation in Congress 
should be proportioned ; and the influence of the ruling 
class in the South was rendered by that provision still 
more disproportionate to its numerical strength. Still 
another motive was thus added for the preservation of 
slavery and the social power which it conferred. 



66. Legal Status of Slavery. 

The existence of slavery within the respective States 
depended entirely upon their own independent choice. 
Statutory It had come into existence by custom merely, 
recognition. j|- j^g^^^ howcver, received statutory and judi- 
cial recognition, and no one pretended to think either that 

9 



130 The Slavery Question, [§66. 

Congress could interfere with it under the federal Con- 
stitution as it stood, or that there was the sKghtest pros- 
pect of the passage of a constitutional amendment giving 
Congress any powers concerning it. It was not the 
question of its continued existence in the States where it 
was already established, but the question of its extension 
into the Territories of the United States, or the admission 
into the Union of States like Texas, which already pos- 
sessed slaves, that was the live question of national poli- 
tics. It was upon this territorial question that the south- 
ern leaders thought it to their interest to be aggressive, 
in order that the slave States might not be left in a peril* 
ous minority when new States came to be added to the 
Union in the future ; and it was here that their aggres- 
siveness stirred alarm and provoked resistance. 

This was the field of feverish anxiety and doubtful 
struggle. Many ominous things were occurring. In 
Disturbing 1^31 ^^t Turner's rebellion, the most formi- 
events. dablc and terrible of the outbreaks among 

the southern negroes, had taken place in Virginia, and had 
seemed to the startled southerners to have some connec- 
tion with the anti-slavery movement. In 1833 the Brit- 
ish Parliament passed a bill abolishing slavery through- 
out the British Empire, by purchase ; and the example of 
abolition was brought uncomfortably near to our shores 
in the British West Indies. The Seminole War had 
dragged on from 1832 to 1839, and had had its immediate 
bearing upon the question of slavery ; for more than a 
thousand slaves had fled into Florida, while it was a 
Spanish possession, and had taken refuge among the In- 
dians, with whom they had in many cases intermarried, 
and it was known that the war was prosecuted largely 
for the recapture of these fugitives, whom the Seminoles 
refused to surrender. Last, and most important of all, 
the question of the admission of Texas, with her slave 



17S6-1861.] Legal Status of Slavery. 131 

system and her vast territory, arose to become the first 
of a series of questions of free soil or slave soil which 
were to transform parties and lead directly to civil war. 
1 1 was not the question of abolition that gained ground, 
but the question of the territorial limitation of slavery. 

As yet but two formal statutes had been passed 
touching the question of slavery in the Territories, — the 
Ordinance ^^st the Celebrated Ordinance of 1787, which 
of 1787. '\{2A been adopted by the Congress of the 
Confederation, and which had excluded slavery from the 
" Northwest Territory,'* the region lying north of the 
Ohio River and east of the Mississippi (Formation of the 
Union, § 52). This Ordinance had been confirmed by an 
Act passed by the Congress of the n'ew government in 
August, 1789, although it was generally admitted that the 
Congress of the Confederation had had no constitutional 
power either to acquire or to govern this territory. It 
was taken for granted that the power was sufficiently 
secured to the Congress of the Union by that article 
of the Constitution which confers upon Congress the 
power "to make all needful rules and regulations re- 
specting the territory or other property belonging to the 
United States." The second Act was that which con- 
Missouri cerned the admission of the State of Missouri 
compromise, to the Union, by which it had been deter- 
mined that, with the exception of Missouri, slavery 
should be wholly excluded from that portion of the Loui- 
siana purchase which lay north of the southern boundary 
of Missouri extended (Formation of the Union, § 127). 
Although the greater part of the territory then belonging 
to the United States had been thus barred against the 
extension of slavery, not a little of it was left open. The 
principle of compromise had been adopted, and the 
southern leaders given to understand that, within a cer- 
tain space, they had the sanction of the general govern- 



132 The Slavery Question, [§§66,67. 

ment in the prosecution of their efforts to extend their 
system and their political influence. It was, however, 
open to any successful party that chose to disregard this 
compromise in the future to break it and re-open the 
whole question. 



i84i.] The Whig Programme. 133 



CHAPTER VI. 
TEXAS Airo THE MEXICAN "WAR (1836-1848). 

67. The Whig Programme (1841). 

The Whig party fought and won the campaign of 1840 
in one character, and then proceeded to make use of 
The Whk their victory in quite another character. They 
transforma- sought the clectiou of Harrison as an opposi- 
tion party, whose only programme of measures 
was that the erring Democrats should be ousted and 
rebuked; and then, when Harrison had been elected, 
forthwith interpreted the result to mean that they had 
been commissioned to carry out an elaborate programme 
of constructive legislation. The party had not been 
homogeneous enough to venture upon a formulation of 
active principles before they won the elections ; but 
the elections once gained, they were found ready with 
a series of reforms. 

The campaign of 1840 had been one of unparalleled 
excitement and enthusiasm, and, when reckoned by 
electoral votes, the defeat of Van Buren had seemed 
overwhelming. Nineteen of the twenty-six States had 
given majorities for Harrison, only seven for Van Buren, 
But in most of the States the vote had been very close, 
and Harrison's plurality was only 145,914 out of a 
„, .^ total vote of almost two millions and a half. 

Significane*- ^_ . . , . . . 

of Whig It was the noisy demonstrations of the cam- 

success, paign, still ringing in the ears of the Whigs, 

that made them deem the recent elections a popular rev- 
olution in their favor. A dispassionate examination of 



134 The Slavery Question. [§§67,68. 

the vote shews that nothing extraordinary had taken 
place, but only a moderate and equable, though singu- 
larly widespread and uniform, re-action from the drastic, 
and for the time distressing, policy of the Democratic 
administration. The Congressional elections were a 
much truer index of the result. In the preceding Con- 
gress the two parties had been almost equally matched 
in the House. In the next House the Whigs were to 
have a majority of twenty-five, and in the Senate a 
majority of six. 

The recent financial troubles had brought real distress 
upon the government as well as upon the people, and it 
Whig pro- was deemed necessary to call an extraordinary 
gramme. sessiou of Congress to devise measures of re- 

lief as speedily as possible. The Houses were sum- 
moned for the last day of May, and Mr. Clay was ready 
with a list of the measures which ought to be passed. 
That list included the repeal of the Independent Treas- 
ury Act, the establishment of a new national bank, the 
raising of a temporary loan, the laying of permanent 
tariff duties to supply the government with funds, and 
the distribution among the States of the proceeds of the 
^ , ^ sales of public lands. General Harrison was 

Death of . , . , . 

General an earnest, straightforward, mgenuous man 01 

arrison. ^j^^ people ; he enjoyed some military renown, 
and he had had some training in civil office. He was a 
sincere Whig, too, and thought that he had been elected 
to preside over Whig reforms. Mr. Clay's programme 
would probably have won his approval and support. 
But a sore disappointment was in store for the party. 
General Harrison was an old man, nearing his seventieth 
year; the campaign had been full of excitement and 
fatigue for him ; and when he came to the presidency he 
shielded neither his strength nor his privacy, but gave up 
both to the horde of office seekers and advisers who 



1 841. J The Vice-President succeeds, 135 

crowded about him. Even his vigorous and toughened 
frame could not endure what he undertook ; he suddenly 
sickened, and exactly one month after his inauguration 
he died. 

68. The Vice-President succeeds (1841). 

For the first time in the history of the government 
the Vice-President succeeded to the office of President, 
y , ^ , This was a contingency which had been 
deemed by no means impossible, but for 
which the congressional leaders had made no provision 
in their plans. Mr. Tyler seemed of their party only 
by accident, and illustrated its composite make-up. He 
belonged to the southern group of public men, was a 
strict constructionist, and a friend of the system of slavery. 
He had opposed the re-charter of the Bank of the United 
States at the same time that he had also opposed Jackson's 
removal of the deposits. He had maintained during the 
Missouri debates that Congress had no constitutional 
right to prohibit slavery in the Territories. He had 
voted against the " Force Bill " during the nullification 
troubles of the winter of 1 832-1 833. He had come to 
be reckoned among Whigs only because he had refused 
to submit in all things to the dictation of the Democratic 
majority ; and he had received the second place on the 
presidential ticket of 1840 only because they desired to 
make sure of the somewhat doubtful allegiance of the 
southern group that were opposing the Democrats. 
Now that he was President, therefore, the congressional 
leaders found themselves in a novel and most embarrass- 
ing situation. Instead of a President who was their own 
man, they had a President who was, like many another 
southern member of the new party, only an eclectic 
Democrat. 

The historian finds it extremely difficult to judge the 
character and conduct of Tyler as he appears during his 



136 The Slavery Question, [§§68,69. 

presidency. As gentle and courteous in manner as Van 
Buren, he seemed to those who had had no experience of 
Tyler as ^is abilities, much less astute, much less a 

President. niaster of policy. It was his instinct, when 
brought into contact with opponents, to placate antago- 
nisms. There was, moreover, in the general make-up of 
his faculties, a tendency towards compromise which often 
wore the unpleasing appearance of vacillation. Those 
whom he thwarted and offended accused him of duplicity; 
although his action was not the result of a dishonest spirit 
but rather of a thoughtful habit of accommodation. His 
past record in Congress furnished abundant evidence that 
he was not without courage in acting upon his convic- 
tions, and that he held his convictions upon individual 
questions with no slight degree of tenacity. But in his 
mind political questions were separate, not members of a 
systematic body of doctrine, and the aspects of each ques- 
tion changed with changes of circumstance. His mind, 
without being weak, was sensitive to changes of influence; 
it was a mind that balanced considerations, that picked 
and chose among measures. 

His unexpected elevation to the presidency, moreover, 
brought new and subtle influences to bear upon him, 
Tyler's which rendered his course of action still more 

policy. incalculable. He was prompted, doubtless by 

a small coterie of personal friends and advisers, to believe 
that by a little shrewdness and a little boldness he could 
transform himself from an accidental into a regular Presi- 
dent, make himself the real leader of a party, and become 
his own successor. The Whigs were not united, and 
projects for forming new parties amongst them seemed 
feasible enough. Why might not the President, by mak- 
ing his own choice of measures, commend himself to the 
country and supersede others in its confidence? Mr, 
Tyler at once showed himself determined to be a real 



1841,1842.] Whig Prograiwne miscarries. 137 

President ; and in the end marred the whole programme 
of the congressional leaders. For a time, however, Gen- 
eral Harrison's cabinet was retained ; and it was made 
up of safe Whigs, led by the great Whig champion, 
Daniel Webster, as Secretary of State. 

69. The Programme miscarries (1842). 

Clay had serious misgivings concerning the new Presi- 
dent, but he did not withhold his programme when Con- 
The gress assembled. The first step was taken 

Treasury. without difficulty : a bill repealing the Inde- 
pendent Treasury Act of the previous year was passed, 
and signed by the President. This was the negative part 
of the new policy ; its necessary complement, accord- 
ing to Clay's Whig doctrine, was the creation of a new 
national bank. It was here that Tyler proved himself 
intractable. The situation was one of great embarrass- 
ment for him. His votes in Congress had distinctly 
committed him as an opponent of a national bank, and 
yet he had been elected Vice-President as the represen- 
tative of a party whose leaders were committed to a 
national bank more unequivocally than to anything else. 
Apparently he had either to desert them or his principles. 
He attempted to follow a middle course which would 
deliver him from so unpleasant a dilemma ; he neces^ 
sarily failed, and in faihng he brought very serious dis- 
order upon his inchoate party. 

Clay would have pressed for a bank of the old pattern, 
with its central offices in Wall Street, and its branches 
National throughout the country. Tyler, however, it 
Bank Bill. ^^^^3 found, could not smother his constitu- 
tional scruples on this subject. Like the Jacksonian 
Democrats, he doubted the power of Congress to estab- 
lish such a bank. It was given out, however, that he 
would not oppose a central bank in the District of Colum- 
bia, the national government's own home-plot, or the 



138 The Slavery Question, [§§ 69, 7a 

establishment of branches of this central institution, upon 
assent being given to their establishment by the States in 
which they were to be placed. Clay prepared a bill which 
yielded the point of the location of the central offices of 
the bank, but which did not provide for state assent to the 
establishment of branches. The bill passed both houses ; 
the President, after some delay, vetoed it, 
^^^°' August 16, 1 841 ; and the majority in favor of 

it in Congress was not large enough to pass it over the 
veto. 

Chagrined, and deeply solicitous to prevent the miscar- 
riage of their cherished plans, the Congressional leaders 
« Y\sc-z\ Cor- sought to ascertain what sort of a bank bill the 
poration." President would sign. After many conferences, 
it was given out that President Tyler would accept a bill 
which established a " Fiscal Corporation." (so it was 
thought politic to call it), with its central offices in the 
federal District, and with local agencies whose operations 
should not extend to the full banking functions of deposit 
and discount, but should be confined to interstate and 
foreign exchange. It was understood that the principle 
of such a measure had been discussed and approved by 
Mr. Tyler and his cabinet; and a bill was drafted which 
it was hoped he would accept, as free from the objection- 
able features of the bill he had vetoed. But, though 
framed as if to meet his views, the new bill did not really 
yield the point upon which he had most insisted. It did 
not require the consent of the States to the establishment 
of branches of the new corporation. Neither did it guard 
very carefully the sort of business which might take place 
Second Under the name of "exchange." The Pres- 

veto. ident's personal friends in Congress sought to 

amend it, but were put aside ; and when it came into his 
hands he promptly disposed of it by a second veto (Sep- 
tember 9). No doubt the congressional leaders had been 
in part misled by persons who had no right to speak for 



1842.] Tyler s Bank Vetoes. 139 

Mr. Tyler, but his opposition had been anticipated, and 
by the time the bill reached him he was already deeply 
exasperated by the outrageous reproaches heaped upon 
him in Congress. He had involved himself in a very 
awkward position, and had extricated himself by force 
rather than with the address of a leader. 

Beyond measure disappointed and exasperated, and 
imprudently hasty in their expressions of resentment, the 
Tyler dis- Whig members of Congress publicly repudi- 
carded. ^^.^^ ^^ President, declaring that " all politi- 

cal connection between them and John Tyler was at an 
end from that day forth ; " and every member of the 
cabinet at once resigned, except Webster, who was in 
the midst of delicate diplomatic business which could not 
be suddenly abandoned. The President had to fill tha 
empty offices as best he could, with men of somewhat 
looser party ties. 

70. Some "Whig Measures saved (1842). 

The rest of the Whig programme went through without 
much difficulty. The immediate needs of the Treasury 
^. ., . were provided for by a loan and a temporary 

Distribution. ,_.^p. «! » .,., 

ranli Act. A law was passed providmg for 
an annual division of the proceeds of the sales of public 
lands among the States, though a proviso was attached to 
it by the friends of low tariff, which in the end prevented 
it from going into effect. An amendment was incorpo- 
rated which directed the suspension of the law whenever 
the tariff duties should exceed twenty per cent. Never- 
theless, without the bank measure, the Whig policy was 
Deposit of sadly mutilated. The Independent Treasury 
balances. ig^^y \^2A been repealed, but no other fiscal 
agency was provided for the use of the government : for 
the remainder of Tyler's term the handling and safo 
keeping of the revenues of the government remained 
unprovided for by law, to be managed at the discretion of 



140 The Slavery Question, [§§ 70, 71. 

the Treasury. Fortunately the management of the ad- 
ministration was in this respect both wise and prudent, 
and the funds were handled without loss. In the reg- 
ular session of 1841-1842 Congress passed a permanent 
Tariff Act. The twenty per cent duty which had been 
reached July i, 1842, under the provisions of the com- 
promise tariff of 1833, remained in force only two 
Tariff of months. The new Tariff Act, which went into 
1842. effect on the ist of September, 1842, again 

considerably increased the duties to be levied. It had 
been only after a third trial that this Act had become 
law. Twice it had been passed with a provision for the 
distribution of surplus revenue among the States, and 
twice the President had vetoed it because of that pro- 
vision; the third time it was passed without the ob- 
noxious clause, and received his signature. 

The diplomatic matters which kept Webster at his post 
when his colleagues were resigning, concerned the long- 
The Ashbur- Standing dispute with Great Britain touching 
ton Treaty, ^^g boundary line between the northeastern 
States of the Union and the British North American 
Provinces. The treaty of peace of 1783 had not dis- 
stinctly fixed the boundary line in that quarter, and it had 
long been in dispute. The dispute was now complicated, 
moreover, by other subjects of irritation between the 
two countries, connected with certain attempts on the 
part of American citizens to assist rebellion in Canada, 
and with the liberation of certain mutinous slaves by 
the British authorities in the ports of the British West 
Indies. The northeastern States, too, were interested 
in getting as much territory as possible, and were not 
disposed to agree to moderate terms of accommodation. 
In August, 1842, by agreement between Mr. Webster 
and Lord Ashburton, a treaty was signed which accom- 
modated the boundary dispute by running a compromise 



1783-1842.] Whig Measures aid Fortunes, 141 

line across the district in controversy, and which also 
effected a satisfactory settlement of the other questions at 
issue. After seeing this treaty safely through the Senate 
and past the dangers of adverse criticism in England, 
Mr. Webster also retired from the cabinet. 

71. The Independent State of Texas (1819-1836). 

Signs were not wanting that the people, as well as the 
President, were out of sympathy with the Whig policy, 
„„ . , and were beginning to repent of the re-action 

Whig losses. , 1 T^ ^ , 

against the Democrats. So early as the 
autumn of 1841 many state elections went against the 
Whigs, in States in which they had but recently been suc- 
cessful; and when the mid-term Congressional elections 
came around, the Whig majority in the House was swept 
utterly away, supplanted by a Democratic majority of 
sixty-one. The President, however, reaped no benefit 
from the change ; he had ruined himself as a Democrat 
without commending himself as a Whig. His Demo- 
cratic opinions, however genuine, did not commend him 
to the Democrats, though they were of course glad to 
avail themselves of the advantages which his defeat of 
the Whig plans afforded them. 

The Senate remaining Whig, the second Congress of 
Tyler's administration groped about amidst counsellings 
Lack of more confused and ineffectual than ever. The 

harmony. want of harmony between the two houses was 
added to the lack of concert between the President and 
both parties alike. The legislation effected was there- 
fore of little consequence, except in regard to a question 
which had so far been in no party programme at all. 
This was the question of the admission of Texas to the 
Union. 

Texas had originally been part of the Spanish posses- 
sions in America, and when the United States acquired 



142 The Slavery Question, [§§71.72. 

Florida from Spain by the treaty of 1819, Texas had, 
upon much disputed grounds, indeed, been claimed as 
Texas and P^^ of the Louisiana purchase. This claim 
Mexico. had, however, been given up, and a boundary 

line agreed upon which excluded her (Formation of the 
Union, § 124). In 1821, before this treaty had been 
finally ratified by Spain, the Spanish colonists in Mexico 
broke away from their allegiance, and established them- 
selves in independence. In 1824 they adopted a federal 
form of government, and of this government the " State 
of Coahuila and Texas " became a constituent member, 
under a constitution, framed in 1827, which provided for 
Emanci- gradual abolition of slavery and prohibited 
pation. ^Q importation of slaves. But presently 

immigration transformed Texas from a Spanish into an 
American community. More and more rapidly, and in 
constantly augmenting numbers, settlers came in from 
the southern States of the Union, bringing their slaves 
with them, in despite of the Texan constitution. By 1833 
the Americans had become so numerous that they made 
bold to take things in their own hands, and form a new 
constitution upon their own pattern. This constitution 
was never recognized by the Mexican government; but 
that mattered little, for the American settlers were pres- 
ently to have a government of their own. In 1835 Santa 
Anna, the Mexican President, undertook to overthrow 
the federal constitution, and reduce the States 

Secession. . i. i 

to the status or provinces under a centralized 
government. Texas at once seceded (March 2, 1836); 
Santa Anna, with five thousand men, was defeated by 
seven or eight hundred Texans, under General Sam 
Houston, in the battle of San Jacinto (April 21, 1836); 
and an independent republic was formed, with a constitu- 
tion establishing slavery. It was almost ten years be- 
fore Mexico could make up her mind to recognize the 



1819-1837-] Independent State of Texas. 143 

independence of the revolted State ; but the commercial 
States of Europe, who wanted the Texas trade, and those 
indepen- politicians in the United States who wanted 
dence. jigj- territory, were not so long about it. The 

United States, England, France, and Belgium recognized 
her independence in 1837. Her recognition by the United 
States had been brought about by her friends through 
Jackson, without the consent of Congress. 

72. First Steps towards Annexation (1837-1844). 

It was no part of the ambition of Texas to remain an 
independent State. The American settlers within her bor- 
Purpose of ^ers had practically effected a great conquest 
annexation, ^f territory, and it was their ardent desire to 
add this territory which they had won to the United 
States. Hardly had they achieved separation from 
Mexico when they made overtures to be admitted into 
the Union. But this was by no means easily to be ac- 
complished. To admit Texas would be to add to the area 
of slavery an enormous territory, big enough for the 
formation of eight or ten States of the ordinary size, and 
thus to increase tremendously the political influence of 
the southern States and the slave-holding class. For 
this the northern members of Congress were not pre- 
. . pared. While public opinion in the North 
had no taste for any policy in derogation of 
the compromises of the Constitution, it had, ever since 
the debates on the Missouri Compromise, been steadily 
making in favor of a limitation of the area of slavery, 
its exclusion from as large a portion as possible of the 
national domain. John Quincy Adams, now grown old 
in his advocacy of the right of the anti-slavery men to be 
heard in Congress, was looking about for some successor, 
and had been joined in the House by Joshua R. Giddings, 



144 T^^^ Slavery Question. [§§72, 73. 

a sturdy young pioneer from the Western Reserve of Ohio. 
Giddings had out-Adams'd Adams in offering obnox- 
. ious petitions and resolutions, had been cen- 

'°^' sured by the House ; had thereupon resigned 
his seat, and been triumphantly re-elected by his con- 
stituents, — sent back to do the hke again. There was 
too much feeling, too keen an anxiety about the slavery 
question, to make additions to slave territory just now 
easy, even if they should ever prove to be possible. 

Van Buren, after seeming to dally with the question a 
little, had read the signs of the times, and declined the 
overtures of the Texans for annexation. Tyler 
y er 8 po icy, ^^^ naturally more favorable to the project. 
By birth, training, and sympathy every inch a southerner, 
he shared to the full the principles, if not the boldness, of 
the southern men of the stronger and sterner type, like 
Calhoun. He suffered himself to be led into negotia- 
tions with Texas. These negotiations were throughout 
the whole of their progress kept secret ; Congress heard 
not a word of them until they were completed. Secrecy 
agreed well with the very delicate nature of the business, 
and favored the negotiations; open discussion would 
almost certainly have defeated them. Foreign nations 
were courting Texas for the sake of commer- 

Arguments ® , ,. -i- 

forannexa- cial advantage. Calhoun beheved that r^ng- 
*'°"* land was seeking by every means to attach 

Texas to herself, if not actually to take possession of her. 
Mexico, it now appeared, at last despairing of recovering 
the territory, was straining every nerve to separate Texas 
from the United States, offering recognition of her inde- 
pendence in exchange for a promise from her to remain 
separate and independent. The slave interest was clam- 
orous for the territory; so also were the speculators who 
held Texas land-scrip. To annex this great slave State 
might be too great a concession to slavery ; but would it 



1837-1844-] Steps towards Annexation, 145 

not be worse to allow her to remain separate, a rival at 
our doors, and a rival free, and likely, to ally herself with 
European powers ? Since our own people had taken pos- 
session of her, must not our government do so also ? 

Fostered and advanced by whatever motives, the secret 
negotiations prospered, and in April, 1844, the President 
A treaty Startled the politicians by submitting to the 
defeated. Senate a treaty of annexation which he had 
negotiated with the Texan authorities. It was rejected 
by a decisive vote (16 to 35). Many even of those who 
approved of the proposal did not like this way of spring- 
ing it suddenly upon the country after whispered nego- 
tiations, — particularly when it proceeded from a President 
who belonged to neither party. But the President had, 
at any rate, made the annexation of Texas a leading issue 
of politics, concerning which party platforms must speak, 
in reference to which party candidates must be questioned 
and judged, by which votes must be determined. 

73. Presidential Campaign of 1844. 

The treaty had been held in committee till the national 
conventions of the two parties should declare themselves. 
Both conventions met in Baltimore, in May, to name can- 
didates and avow policies. The Whigs were unanimous 
as to who should be their candidate : it could be no one 
but Henry Clay. Among the Democrats there was a very 
strong feeling in favor of the renomination of Van Buren. 
But both Clay and Van Buren had been asked their opin- 
ion about the annexation of Texas, both had declared 
themselves opposed to any immediate step in that direc- 
tion, and Van Buren's declaration cost him the Democra- 
tic nomination. He could have commanded a very con- 
siderable majority in the Democratic convention, but he 
did not command the two-thirds majority required by 

10 



146 The Slavery Question, [§§73,74. 

its rules, and James K. Polk of Tennessee became the 
nominee of the party. The convention having now com- 
mitted itself, the Senate was allowed, June 8, to vote on 
the treaty, and rejected it. 

Henry Clay was well known to have spent his life in 
advocating the lines of policy now clearly avowed by the 
The can- Whigs ; James K. Polk, though as yet little 
didates. known by the country, proved an excellent 

embodiment of the principles of the Democrats. He had 
been well known in the House of Representatives, over 
which he had presided as Speaker, and where he had 
served most honorably, if without distinction. He was 
a southerner, and fully committed in favor of annexa- 
tion. Though in no sense a man of brilliant parts, he 
may be said to have been a thoroughly representative 
man of his class, a sturdy, upright, straightforward party 
man. He believed in the policy for which his party had 
declared, and he meant, if elected, to carry it out. 

The two party " platforms " were both of them for the 
most part old, embodying the things which everybody 
understood Whigs and Democrats to stand for. The 
only new matter was contained in the Democratic plat- 
form, in a resolution which demanded " the re-occupation 
Oregon of Oregon, and the re-annexation of Texas, 

and Texas. ^X the earliest practicable period ; " and this 
proved the make-weight in the campaign. It was clear 
what Polk meant to do ; it presently became less clear 
what Clay meant to do. Clay had fatal facility in writing 
letters and making explanations. Again and again did 
he explain his position upon the question of annexation, 
in a vain endeavor to please both sides. Many, the Abo- 
litionists among the number, concluded that an open 
enemy was more easily to be handled than an unstable 
friend. The " Liberty Party," the political organization 
of the Abolitionists, commanded now, as it turned out. 



rS44-] Presidential Campaign. 147 

more than sixty thousand votes; and it was made up of 
men who had much more in common with Whigs than 
with Democrats. It put a candidate in the field, and 
attracted many votes which Mr. Clay needed for his elec- 
tion. Fifteen States were carried for Polk, only eleven 
for Clay. Polk's majority in the electoral college was 
sixty-five. Almost everywhere the majorities had been 
narrow. Had the " Liberty " men in New York voted for 
Clay, he would have been elected. Many things had en- 
tered into the determination of the result, but the question 
of the admission of Texas into the Union was undoubtedly 
the decisive issue of the campaign. 

Tyler hastened to be beforehand with the new admin- 
istration. A joint resolution in favor of the annexation of 
Texas ad- Tcxas was Urged in both houses, was passed, 
muted. ^j^^ ^g^g signed by the President, March 3 

1845. This resolution adopted the Missouri Compromise 
line (36° 30' north latitude) with regard to the extension 
of slavery within the new territory ; for it was assumed 
that the territory of Texas included all of the Mexican 
country lying to the north between the Rio Grande and 
the boundary lines fixed by the Spanish treaty of 1819. 

74. The Oregon Question (1844-1846). 

For a short time it looked as if the Democratic policy 
of territorial aggrandizement would cost the country two 
wars ; but fortunately one of these wars was 
avoided, and that the one most to be dreaded. 
The Democrats had coupled Oregon with Texas in the 
resolution passed by their convention, in order to please 
the Northwest as well as the South. They had succeeded 
only too well : a strong feeling had been created in favor 
of pressing a very doubtful claim. The boundaries of 
the " Oregon country," as well as the right to the posses- 



mesa, 'in iL'siifSE: vtfrj irnnr^ziiiiiiirifr^ 3S2Jj:siif;d T ^T uwiig i 
:Jl':nir 3icr__ .._ ^... :_ _ - - - ■ - 

Ty5^^^'T ir tstt: jukii. :mf .r.rr.r~' 7-7: t._ 



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A\y \i ; " ^5^ _ 7: 7'" i. times. Tigar ssTnmr 7"' ' ~" 




(i&l7 . .- 7-^ ^ ^ 

-Amy- Tgg.TTTt^r" ^rg*?7 -ix P^w :^g "^^f^ Ikmtnnnxrv BeES^SE."fiK 

m i nl i--7^ -.--.^ — ~ -pgpE 

j c youi C "iEr ^nocT . tl -tik 



1824-1845] " Oregon Country"^' and Texas, 149 

75. The Texan Boundary Dispute (1845-1846). 

Our difficulties with Mexico with regard to the terri- 
tory to be absorbed into the United States along with 
Texas were not so easily settled. With Eng- 
land, which was strong, we were ready to 
compound differences ; from Mexico, which was weak, 
we were disposed to snatch everything, conceding noth- 
ing. Texas had been a member of the federal republic 
of Mexico as part of the compound " State of Coahuila 
and Texas," but it was only Texas, not Coahuila, that 
had seceded from Mexico, and Texas extended to the 
southwest only so far as the Nueces River. Texas did 
indeed claim the territory of Coahuila, at least as far as 
the river Rio Grande ; but she had not been successful 
in establishing that claim. She also claimed that on the 
north and west her territory extended from the sources 
of the Rio Grande due north to latitude 42° ; but on this 
side, too, her claims were asserted rather than established. 
After having admitted Texas to the Union, the United 
States government was bound to make up its own mind 
as to the legitimate extent of Texan territory. President 
Polk very promptly decided what should be done. After 
Texas had accepted the proposition to enter the Union, 
Troops sent Under the joint resolution passed by Congress 
forward. during the last days of Tyler's term, but be- 
fore her entrance was formally complete. President Polk 
ordered General Zachary Taylor to cross the Nueces 
River and occupy its western bank with a force of United 
States troops. Taylor obeyed ; and his force, which at 
first consisted of only about fifteen hundred men, was, 
in the course of the summer of 1845, increased to nearly 
four thousand. For six months nothing was done ; the 
Mexicans made no hostile movement. 

In December, 1845, Texas became a State of the Union. 



150 The Slavery Question. [§§75,76. 

Early in the following year the President, without con- 
sultation with Congress, which was then in session, took 
Taylor's the responsibility of ordering General Taylor 
advance. ^q advance to the Rio Grande, to a point 
threatening the Mexican town of Matamoras, on the op- 
posite side of the river. Again, of course, Taylor obeyed 
orders without question. Arista, the Mexican general, 
demanded his retirement to the Nueces: Taylor refused 
to withdraw ; the Mexicans crossed the river, and on 
April 23, 1846, ambushed a small body of American dra- 
goons. A few days later an army of six thousand men 
met Taylor's force of twenty-three hundred 
andResaca at Palo Alto, attacked it, and were repulsed. 
deiaPalma. ^j^^ ^^^^ ^^^ Taylor attacked Arista at 

Resaca de la Pal ma and drove him in disastrous defeat 
back across the river, and, himself passing the Rio 
Grande, captured Matamoras. "Mexico," declared the 
President's message of May 11, 1846, "has passed the 
boundary of the United States, . . . and shed American 
blood upon American soil. War exists, and exists by 
the act of Mexico herself." 

Upon the eve of these affairs Mexico had been filled 
with civil disorders, and possibly it had not been ex- 
Santa Anna's P^cted that she would resist the aggressions 
intrigue. of the United States to the point of actual 
war. Our government tried to weaken her still further 
by assisting her to another revolution ; but that provident 
intrigue miscarried. It only substituted the able and 
astute Santa Anna, an old and implacable enemy of the 
United States, for the much less capable Paredes as head 
of the Mexican power. 

76. "War with Mexico (1846-1848). 

Congress accepted the assertion that Mexico had be- 
jrun the war, as convenient, whether true or not, and pro- 



1846, 1 847-] War with Mexico. 151 

vided for the expenses of the conflict as for any neces« 
sity. A formal declaration of war was resolved upon on 
Declaration May 1 3, 1 846, before the news of Palo Alto and 
of war. Resaca de la Palma had reached Washing- 

ton; and the President was authorized to call for fifty 
thousand volunteers for one year. September 19-23, the 
Americans, by slow and stubborn fighting, took the 
strongly placed and heavily fortified city of Monterey, 

some nineteen miles south of the Rio Grande. 

on erey. February 22 and 23, 1847, Santa Anna, with a 

force probably numbering at least twelve thousand men, 

attacked Taylor's force, which then numbered fifty-two 

hundred, on the broken plain of Buena Vista, 

Buena Vista. , - . ' , ^ ^ . , , 

but, raihng to gam any advantage, withdrew 

to the defence of his capital, the City of Mexico. He 
had thought to destroy Taylor while he was weak ; for in 
November, 1846, General Winfield Scott had been ap- 
pointed to the chief command in Mexico, to which his 
military rank entitled him, and January had brought a 
call for the greater part of Taylor's troops to assist the 
commander-in-chief in an invasion of Mexico from Vera 
Cruz on the coast. The operations in the north ended 
with the battle of Buena Vista. 

General Scott began his operations with a force of 

about twelve thousand men. He had chosen a hard road 

to the Mexican capital, but the dogged valor 

General Scott. j , , •. r i • i 

and alert sagacity 01 his men made every- 
thing possible. The fleet which carried his troops came 
to anchor near Vera Cruz on the 7th of March, 1847, and 
on the 27th of the same month Vera Cruz had 
surrendered, having been taken without great 
difficulty. In the middle of April began the march of 
^ , two hundred miles northwestward to the City 

Cerro Gordo. r -r,r • ^i ^i^ ,- ,, , 

of Mexico. On the i8th Scott forced the rough 
mountain pass of Cerro Gordo. On the loth of August, 



152 The Slavery Question. [§§76,77. 

after a delay caused by fruitless negotiations for peace, 
the City of Mexico was in sight from the heights of the 
Rio Frio Mountains. Selecting the weaker side of the 
city, which lay amid a network of defences and sur- 
rounded on all sides by marshy ground which could be 
crossed only upon causeways, the Americans slowly, by 
dint of heroic courage and patience, drove the Mexicans 
from one position of defence to another until 
finally the great fortress of Chapultepec was 
taken by storm (September 13) and the city captured. 
The occupation was complete by the 15th, and there was 
no further resistance anywhere by the Mexicans. At 
every point the American troops had fought against heavy 
odds. They were most of them only volunteers, and they 
had fought against a race full of courage, spirit, and sub- 
tlety. Their success was due to their moral quahties, — 
to their steady pluck and self-confidence, their cool intelli- 
gence, their indomitable purpose, their equal endowments 
of patience and dash. 

77. The "Wilmot Proviso (1846). 

Not satisfied with seizing all that Texas claimed on the 
south and west, Mr. Polk and his advisers had turned 
covetous eyes towards Mexico's undisputed possessions 
on the northwest. During the spring and summer of 1846 
*T ^^ • small military expeditions were sent out aerainsl 

New Mexico .-' ,^,., . •,., , 

andCaiifor- JNewMexico and Cahiornia, which they occu- 
"'** pied without difficulty, being assisted in the 

seizure of California by a fleet under Commodores Sloat 
and Stockton. The end of the war, consequently, found 
the United States in possession of all the territory that 
^ , Texas had ever claimed, and of as much more 

Treaty of , . , 1 1 1 • 

Guadalupe besides. The treaty which ended this war 
Hidalgo. q£ j.^ti^igss aggrandizement was signed at Gua- 
dalupe Hidalgo, Feb. 2, 1848. The United States agreed 



1846-1848.] Wilmot Proviso. 153 

to pay Mexico fifteen million dollars for the provinces of 
New Mexico and California, which Mexico ceded; Mex- 
ico gave up all claim to Texas ; and the Rio Grande was 
established as the southwestern boundary of the United 
States. 

The northern boundary of Texas was still unsettled • 
the State still claimed all the territory that lay directly 
north of her as far as the forty-second parallel of north 
latitude, and the federal government could not in consis- 
tency deny the claim after it had served as a pretext for 
the seizure of the Mexican provinces. The purchase of 
her title became one of the features of the compromise 
legislation of 1850. 

The ultimate outcome of the war had not been deemed 
doubtful at any time, and the opponents of slavery had 
The "Pro- very early determined to make every effort to 
viso." exclude that institution from any territory that 

the United States might acquire outside of Texas. In 
the North, Whigs and Democrats alike were anxious that 
all new territories should be kept free. Accordingly, 
early in August, 1846, when Congress was considering a 
money vote of two millions " for the settlement of the 
boundary question with Mexico " (which was understood 
to mean the acquirement of additional territory), David 
Wilmot, a Democratic member of the House from Penn- 
sylvania, offered an amendment which became famous as 
the " Wilmot Proviso." Following the language of the 
Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the Northwest 
Territory, it provided that in any territories that might 
be acquired from Mexico, neither slavery nor involuntary 
servitude should exist, except for judicially determined 
crime. It passed the House, but reached the Senate late, 
and was lost by the dilatory speech of a senator who 
probably favored it. 

The question which it involved was to come up again 



154 ^'^^ Slavery Question. [§§77-79. 

and again, and was destined speedily to break both of the 
Political old national parties in pieces. The slavery 
effect. question had at last brought politics into a 

period of critical change. It had forced upon the Demo- 
crats, the party of strict construction, a war of conquest 
hardly consistent with any possible construction of the 
Constitution. It was presently to bring utter destruction 
upon them. 

78. The Eest of the Democratic Programme (1846-1847). 

In all other points of policy the Democrats had acted 
quite resolutely in accordance with their avowed princi- 
Tariff of pl^s. In July, 1 846, Congress, which was Dem- 
1846. ocratic in both branches, passed a Tariff Act 

which maybe said substantially to have conformed to the 
professed Democratic ideal of a tariff of which the pur- 
pose was revenue rather than protection. It by no means 
established free trade, but, grouping dutiable articles 
under four several classes (known as schedules A, B, C, 
and D), it put all those articles which usually claimed pro- 
tection under a duty of only thirty per cent. Cottons were 
put in class D, subject to a duty of twenty-five per cent ; 
while tea and coffee, which would naturally have been 
chosen for taxation, had this been a tariff " for revenue 
only," ar^d not also incidentally for protection, were put 
upon thq free list. The new law v/as to go into effect 
on December i. August 6, 1846, another step was taken 
towards the accomplishment of the full Democratic pro- 
independent gramme. On that day a new Independent 
Treasury. Treasury Act, corresponding in all essential 
points with that of July, 1840, became law. The measure 
for which Van Buren had struggled so long, and on ac- 
count of which he had sacrificed his chance for another 
term of office, was at last made a permanent part of the 



1846-1847.] Democratic Programme. 155 

financial policy of the government. It has never since 
been altered in any essential feature. 

The tariff was not again tampered with until 1857. 
Not even the expenses of the Mexican War could drive 
Revenue Congress either into increasing the tariff duties 
policy. for the sake of a larger revenue, or into con- 

necting the government again with the banks for the sake 
of a serviceable currency. Both objects were thought to 
be sufficiently accomphshed by large issues of interest- 
bearing treasury notes, and no further banking experi- 
ments were tried. 

In the second Congress of Polk's administration, 
chosen in the autumn of 1846, with the Mexican War 
Elections coming on, the Democratic majority in the 
of 1846. House had disappeared ; there were 117 Whigs 

to 108 Democrats. But the Senate was still strongly 
Democratic, and the only result of the elections was that 
it became harder than ever to hit upon any policy for the 
government of the territories acquired from Mexico. 

79. Slavery and the Mexican Cession (1846-1848). 

The " Wilmot Proviso " was at once a symptom and a 

cause of profound political changes. It would seem that 

at first there was no serious opposition to the 

Arguments ^^ 

for the principle which it involved. It was objected 

to, rather, as unnecessary, and as imprudent, 
because provocative of dangerous controversy. Slavery 
was already prohibited by Mexican law within the territo- 
ries affected : why raise the question, therefore ; why take 
any steps concerning it ? The bill to which the proviso 
was attached had passed the House promptly and without 
difficulty, and it was the action of a minority only that 
prevented the Senate from accepting it also. But delay 
changed everything. The more the oarty leaders thought 



156 The Slavery Question, [§§79,80. 

about the question involved, the less they relished the 
idea of taking any decisive step with regard to it. 

During the session of 1 846-1 847, independent bills were 
passed by the two houses, appropriating three millions for 
Oregon the Settlement of the boundary disputes, in- 

question. stead of the two millions which had failed of 
appropriation in the previous session because of the pro- 
viso. In the Senate a bill passed without the proviso ; in 
the House a bill which included it. The Senate bill 
finally prevailed. At the same time Oregon was dragged 
into the controversy. A bill providing for the organiza- 
tion of that Territory without slavery, originated in the 
House, failed in the Senate. Before the war of measures 
could be renewed, the Mexican struggle was over, and 
the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had given us the 
vast territory then known as New Mexico and Cali- 
fornia, but covering not only the California and New 
Mexico of the present map, but also Nevada, Utah, 
Arizona, and portions of Colorado and Wyoming. Some 
government was imperatively necessary for these new 
possessions. 

Meantime a few Democrats had invented a new doc- 
trine, which promised a way of escape from the calamity 
"Squatter o^ party division. This was the doctrine of 
sovereignty." u squatter Sovereignty." " Leave the question 
in abeyance ; let the settlers in the new territory decide 
the question as between slavery or no slavery for them- 
selves. It is a question of internal, not of national policy, 
to be determined by new States, as by the old, upon the 
principles of independent local self-government." The 
Whigs had no such doctrinal escape ; neither could they 
keep together on the question. Southern Whigs would 
vote one way, northern Whigs another, along with the 
small body of Democrats who stood by Mr. Wilmot and 
his proviso. 



1846-1848.] Slavery and the Mexican Cession. 157 

August 12, 1848, after debates which had raged ever 
since May around the question of the organization of 
Oregon Oregon and the new Mexican territories, a bill 

organized. a,t last became law which gave Oregon a regu- 
lar territorial government, and which extended to her that 
provision of the ordinance of 1787 which prohibited 
slavery ; but California and New Mexico were still left 
without a permanent organization. 

80. Presidential Campaign of 1848. 

Thereupon ensued the presidential election of 1848, 
which made the effects of this question upon politics very 
Democratic painfully evident. Significant things hap- 
convention, pencd during the months of preparation for 
the campaign. In the first place, the two regular parties 
refused to commit themselves upon the real question of 
the day. The Democratic national convention met first 
in Baltimore, May 22, 1848; nominated for President 
Lewis Cass of Michigan, one of the safest and most in- 
telligent of its more conservative leaders; and adopted 
a platform which simply repeated its declarations of prin- 
ciple of 1840 and 1844. A resolution to the effect that 
non-interference with property in slaves, whether in the 
States or in the Territories, was "true republican doc- 
trine," the convention rejected by the overwhelming vote 
of 216 to 36. It would not commit itself in favor of sla- 
very in the Territories. The Whig convention 
would commit itself to nothing. Falling back 
upon the policy which they had so successfully pursued in 
1840, the Whigs nominated a plain man who had gained 
distinction as a soldier, and made no declaration of 
principles whatever. Their candidates were, for Presi- 
dent, General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana (a native of 
Virginia) ; for Vice-President a Mr. Millard Fillmore of 
New York. 



158 The Slavery Question. [§80, 

But it was not alone the timid, non-committal policy 
of the two great parties which was significant. There 
had come from New York to the Democratic convention 
Democratic two delegations. One of these represented 
factions. tjjg non-committal wing of the party, dubbed 

" Hunkers " in New York. The other represented the 
numerous Democrats in that State known as " Barnburn- 
ers," who stood with Van Buren in holding explicit opin- 
ions as to what ou2:ht to be done. The nickname 
" Barnburners " is said to have been bestowed upon 
this radical wing of the Democrats by way of reference 
to a story, much told upon political platforms at that 
time, of the Dutchman who burned his barn to rid it of 
rats. Were they willing to destroy the party to get rid of 
slavery in the Territories ? When the convention, with 
characteristic weakness, voted to admit both these dele- 
gations and to divide the vote of the State between them, 
both withdrew. 

Nor was this the end of the matter. The withdrawal 
of these delegations from the Democratic convention was 
a signal for independent action, a revolt against the regu- 
lar party nominations. In June tlie "Barnburners" held 
,, , , , a convention of their own, in which they were 

Bolt of the ..,,,, r \^ , ^ 

" Bamburn- jomed by delegates from Massachusetts, Con- 
^'^^' necticut, Ohio, and Wisconsin, and nominated 

Mr. Van Buren for the presidency. In August Mr. Van 
Bureri was again nominated, by a new party, born in a 
convention composed of four hundred and sixty-five dele- 
gates, representing eighteen States, which met at Buffalo, 
at the call of citizens of Ohio. The resolutions adopted 
by this convention admirably formulated the issues of 
the future struggle. They declared for "free soil for a 
The " Free- fi'Gs people." They proposed " no interference 
Sellers." i^y Congress with slavery within the limits of 
any State," for there it rested, they acknowledged, *'upon 



1848.] Presidential Campaign. ^59 

state laws which could not be repealed or modified by the 
federal government ; " but they maintained that Congress 
had " no more power to make a slave than to make a king, 
to establish slavery than to establish a monarchy," and that 
the existence of slavery ought to be specifically forbidden 
in the Territories. Other resolutions declared for princi- 
ples, such as internal improvements, which sounded much 
more Whig than Democratic. The Liberty, or Abolition- 
ist, party had held its third convention the preceding 
November, and had nominated John P. Hale of New 
Hamipshire ; but upon the nomination of Van Buren by 
the "Barnburners," Mr. Hale withdrew. The Free Soil 
party absorbed the Liberty party, henceforth they are 
practically one and the same, and the more radical pro- 
gramme of abolition is replaced by the more practi- 
cable programme of the exclusion of slavery from the 
Territories. The final contest is taking shape. 

The split in the Democratic party in New York was de- 
cisive of the result of the presidential election. Outside 
, . of New York the Free-Soil vote drev/ strength 

The election. - , ,,^, . , , . , 

away from the Whigs rather than from the 
Democrats : it was New York that decided the choice. 
The Democratic vote being divided between Cass and Van 
Buren, her thirty-six electoral votes went to Taylor and 
Fillmore; and thirty-six was exactly the Whig majority in 
the electoral college, where the vote stood 163 for Taylor, 
127 for Cass. The popular vote was very close, neither 
candidate having a majority, because of the 291,263 votes 
cast for Van Buren. In the slowly changing Senate there 
was still to be a large Democratic majority, but in the 
House nine Free-Soilers were to hold the balance of 
power. The disintegration of parties v/as presaged by 
the vote of the South in the election. Six southern States 
(South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, 
and Louisiana) had voted for Taylor, a southerner and 



i6o The Slavery Question. [§§8o, 8i. 

slave-holder, rather than go with the Democrats for Cass 
and a declaration of principles from which their own doc- 
trine of non-interference with slavery in the Territories 
had been pointedly excluded. 

The new feelings and purposes aroused by the cam- 
paign and election showed themselves at once, in the 
Territorial short session of Congress, during the closing 
dispute. months of Polk's term of office. The House 

now instructed a committee to prepare measures for the 
organization of New Mexico and California, upon the 
principle of the exclusion of slavery, and a bill for Cali- 
fornia was framed and passed. But the Senate would 
have nothing to do with it, and the session closed without 
action upon the issue now so rapidly coming to a head. 



[840-1848.] Political and Ecojtomic Chancres, i6i 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE TERRITORIES OPEl^JED TO SLAVERY 
(1848-1856). 

81. Political and Economic Changes (1840-1850). 

There were many symptoms of the coming in of new 
events and forces. The so-called Dorr Rebellion in 
Rhode Island marked the imperative force of the agen- 
The Dorr cies that were operative throughout the coun- 
Rebellion. |-,.y jj^ ^j^g direction of a broad, democratic 
structure of government. The constitution of Rhode 
Island very narrowly restricted the suffrage, excluding 
from the elective franchise quite two-thirds of the men 
of voting age in the State, and the state authorities 
stubbornly resisted all liberal change. In the winter of 
1 841-1 842, accordingly, revolutionary methods of reform 
were resorted to by the popular party, under the leader- 
ship of one Thomas W. Dorr. And though revolution 
was prevented, the reforms demanded were forced upon 
the party of order. 

The same period witnessed serious troubles of another 
kind in New York. There the heirs of certain of the 
Rent troubles ol^ Dutch patroons, who held title to large 
in New York, portions of Several of the counties lying along 
the Hudson River, still insisted upon the payment of rents 
in kind. They were at last obliged to consent to the 
extinguishment of their rights by sale, because of the 
absolute refusal of the tenants to pay for anything but 
a fee-simple. The affair as a whole was as significant of 

II 



1 62 The Slavery Question, [§§81,82. 

economic tendencies as the Dorr Rebellion of the ten- 
dencies of politics. Manhood suffrage and freehold 
titles were to be the permanent bases of our social 
system. 

Almost simultaneously with the conclusion of the 
treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, gold was discovered in 
Discovery California, and before the census of Septem- 
ofgoid. bei-^ ig^o, more than eighty thousand settlers 

had gone thither in search of treasure. Cahfornia had 
a great population and was ready to become a State be- 
fore the politicians had gotten ready to organize her as 
a Territory. 

Meantime change and development were proceeding, 
everywhere but in the South, with increasing rapidity and 
momentum. In 1844 Morse's electric telegraph was put 
into successful operation between Baltimore and Wash- 
ington, just in season to keep the Democratic members 
Invention ^^ Congress apprised of what their party con- 
andexpan- vention was doiug in Baltimore. During the 
decade 1840-1850 more than six thousand miles 
of railway were built, — an increase of more than two 
hundred per cent over the preceding decade ; and now, 
with the assistance of the electric telegraph, systems of 
communication could be both safely extended and readily 
diversified. The population of the country increased 
during the period from seventeen to twenty-three mil- 
lions, and the steady advance of settlement is shown by 
the admission of three States besides Texas. Florida 
entered the Union March 3, 1845, lov/a December 28, 
1846, Wisconsin May 29, 1848, — two free States offset- 
ting two slave States. 

82. Immigration (1845-1850). 

Now at length, moreover, immigration was beginning 
to tell decisively upon the composition of the population. 



1845-1850.] Immigration. 163 

Until the year 1842 the total number of immigrants in 
any one year had never reached one hundred thousand, 
Causes of ^^^^ i^^ 1 844 it had fallen to seventy-eight 
immigration, thousand. But in 1 845 a notable increase 
began: the number of immigrants exceeded 114,000; in 
1846 it was more than 154,000; and in 1847 it was 
234,968. Almost the whole decade was a period of dis- 
quietude and crisis in Europe. 1846 and 1847 were the 
years of the terrible famine in Ireland, and much of the 
immigration of the time came from that unhappy country. 
1848 brought a season of universal political disturbance 
throughout Europe; and by 1849, ^^ number of immi- 
grants had risen to 297,024. But the causes which 
brought foreigners in vast numbers to our shores proved 
not to be temporary. The huge stream of immigrants 
continued to flow in steady volume until checked by war. 
And it had its deep significance as a preparation for the 
. . war which was at hand. These new comers 
swelled the national, not the sectional,- forces 
of our politics ; they avoided the South, where labor was 
in servitude, for they were laborers ; they crowded into 
the northern cities, or pressed on into the great agricul- 
tural region of the Northwest, hastening that development 
and creating those resources which were to be the really 
decisive elements in the coming straggle between the 
slave section and the free section. 

The infusion of so large a foreign element, moreover, 
quickened the universal movemsnt and re-settlement of 
the population which the railways were contributing to 
make easy and rapid, and added stimulation to the spirit 
Movement of of enterprise in new undertakings which the 
population, prevalent prosperity was everywhere encourag- 
ing. It tended, too, to deepen that habit of change, of 
experiment, of radical policies and bold proposals, which 
was bringing the people into a frame of mind to welcome 



164 The Slavery Question. [§§82,83 

even civil war for the sake of a reform. So long, too, as 
a vast growth and movement of population continued 
to be one of the chief features of the national life, the 
question of free soil would continue to be a question of 
pre-eminent importance, of immediate and practical in- 
terest, which could not be compromised without being 
subsequently again and again re-opened. 

Invention still kept pace with industrial needs. The 
power-loom, invented in 1785, was improved by Crompton 
in 1837. A fully practicable sewing machine was pat- 
ented in 1846. The rotary printing press was invented 
in 1847. Piece by piece the whole mechanical appara- 
tus of quick, prolific work, and of the rapid communi- 
cation of thought and impulse, was being perfected. The 
South felt these forces, of course ; it felt, too, 

The South. . , . , . , . . . , 

with genume enthusiasm, the inspiration of 
the national spirit and idea. Southern politicians, indeed, 
were busy debating sectional issues ; but southern mer- 
chants presently fell to holding conventions in the interest 
of the new industrial development. These conventions 
spoke very heartily the language of nationality; they 
planned railways to the Pacific; they invited the co- 
operation of the western States in devising means for 
linking the two sections industrially together; they 
hoped to be able to run upon an equality with the other 
sections of the country in the race for industrial wealth. 
But in all that they said there was an undertone of dis- 
appointment and of apprehension. They wished to take 
part, but could not, in what was going forward in the 
rest of the country. They spoke hopefully of national 
enterprise, but it was evident that the nation of which 
they were thinking when they spoke was not the same 
nation that the northern man had in mind when he 
thought of the future of industry. 



1846- 1849] Issue joined on Slavery. 165 

83. Issue joined upon the Slavery Question (1849). 

During the year 1849 a deep excitement settled upon 
the country. The difficulty experienced by Congress in 
fixing upon a policy with regard to the admission of 
slavery into the new Territories, the serious disintegration 
of parties shown by the presidential campaign of 1848, 
the rising free-soil spirit in the North, and the increasing 
pro-slavery aggressiveness of the South, were evidently 
Sectional bringing the whole matter to a critical issue, 
division. -pi^g sectional lines of the contest had been 
given their first sharp indication during the discussion 
upon the admission of Texas to the Union. " Texas or 
disunion " was the threat which the hotter headed among 
the southern annexationists had ventured to utter ; and 
some of the northern Whigs had not hesitated to join 
John Quincy Adams, early in 1843, in declaring to their 
constituents that in their opinion the annexation of Texas 
would bring about and fully justify a dissolution of the 
Union; while later, in 1845, William Lloyd Garrison had 
won hearty bursts of applause from an anti-annexation 
convention, held in Boston, by the proposal that Massa- 
chusetts should lead in a movement to withdraw from the 
Union. Upon the first defeat of the Wilmot Proviso in 
the Senate in 1846, the legislatures of most of the northern 
States, and even the legislature of Delaware, had adopted 
resolutions in favor of the proviso, members of both the 
national parties concurring in the votes; while with even 
greater unanimity and emphasis, the southern legislatures 
had ranged themselves on the other side. 

In February, 1847, Calhoun had presented in the Sen- 
ate a set of resolutions which affirmed that, inasmuch as 
Calhoun's the Territories were the common property of 
position. g^ji ^]^g States, Congress had no constitutional 
right whatever to exclude slaves from them, the legal 



1 66 The Slavery Question. [§§83,84. 

property of citizens of so many of the States of the 
Union. Privately he had gone even further, and sug- 
gested to his friends in the South the co-operation of the 
southern States, acting in formal convention, in closing 
their ports and railways against commerce with the 
northeastern States, while encouraging intercourse and 
trade with the northwestern, until justice should be dons 
in the matter of the Territories, It might be possible 
thus to divide the opposing section upon grounds of in- 
Demandsof tcrest. The Only just course, it came to be 
the South. thought in the South, was one of complete 
non-intervention by Congress. The southern men asked 
" simply not to be denied equal rights in settling and 
colonizing the common public domain ; " and that, when 
States came to be made out of the Territories, their peo- 
ple " might be permitted to act as they pleased upon the 
subject of the status of the negro race amongst them, as 
upon all other subjects of internal policy, when they came 
to form their constitutions." Before the final compro- 
mise of 1850 was reached, the legislatures of most of the 
southern States had, in one manner or another, directed 
their governors to call state conventions, should the Pro- 
viso be adopted by Congress, in order to take, if neces- 
sary, concerted action against a common danger. It was 
ominous of the worst that the chief questions of politics 
should have become thus sectionalized. It was the first 
challenge to the final struggle between the radically di- 
verse institutions of the two sections, — the section which 
commerce, industry, migration, and immigration had ex- 
panded and nationalized, and the section which slavery 
and its attendant social institutions had kept unchanged 
and separate. 

As yet the real purposes of parties, however, had not 
reached their radical stage. As yet the Abolitionists, 
with their bitter contempt for the compromises of the Con- 



1848-1849] Action by the Territories. 167 

stitution, their ruthless programme of abolition whethel 

with or without constitutional warrant, and their rcadi- 

. . . ness for separation from the southern States 

Abolitionists ,111,.,. . "Ill, 1 

and Free- should abolition prove impossible, had won but 
Soiiers. scant Sympathy from the masses of the people, 

or from any wise leaders of opinion. The Free Soiiers 
were as widely separated from them as possible both in 
spirit and in opinion. They had no relish for revolu- 
tion, no tolerance for revolutionary doctrine, as their im- 
pressive declaration of principles in 1848 conclusively 
attested. The issue was not yet the existence of slavery 
within the States, but the admission of slavery into the 
Territories. The object of the extreme southern men 
was to gain territory for slavery ; the object of the men 
now drawing together into new parties in the North was to 
exclude slavery altogether from the new national domain 
in the West. 

84. Independent Action by tlie Territories (1848-1850). 

The controversy was hurried on apace by the discovery 
of gold in California in January, 1848. From every 
^ ,.^ . quarter of the country, across the continent 

Cahfoniia. , , , , , 

by caravan, around the coasts and across the 
Isthmus of Panama, around both continents and the Cape, 
a great population of pioneers, — a population made up 
almost exclusively of strong, adventurous, aggressive men, 
— poured into the new Territory, establishing camping 
settlements destined to become great cities, improvising 
laws and their administration, almost unconsciously creat- 
ing a great frontier State. To General Taylor, the xi^sn 
Taylor's President, as he witnessed this great develop- 
pohcy. ment, it seemed the simplest way out of the dif- 

ficulty of organizing governments in the new possessions 
to arrange that the several communities of settlers there 
should form state constitutions for themselves, and come 



1 68 The Slavery Question, [§§84,85 

into the Union with institutions of their own choosing. 
Accordingly, he sent a confidential agent to California to 
act with General Riley, the provisional military governor^ 
in organizing such a movement among the settlers, and to 
encourage them to make immediate application to Con- 
gress for admission into the Union. In the autumn of 
1849 a constitution was framed which prohibited slavery; 
a state government was formed at once under the new 
instrument ; and General Riley withdrew. The people of 
New Mexico, under similar direct stimulation from the 
President, adopted a state constitution early in the fol- 
lowing year. The Mormons of Utah so long ago as 
March, 1848, had framed a form of government for a 
State of their own, which they desired to call " Deseret." 
Apparently the Territories were to be beforehand with 
Congress in determining their institutions and forms of 
government. 

When Congress met, December 3, 1849, i^s first diffi- 
culty was to organize. So nice was the balance of par- 
Congress ties, so strong the disposition to independent 
perplexed. action, that nearly three weeks were consumed 
in the effort to elect a Speaker. The President very 
frankly avowed his views to the houses in regard to the 
principal question of the day. He said that he had him- 
self advised the new Territories to form state govern- 
ments; that California had already done so; and that he 
thought that she ought to be admitted at once. He ad- 
vised Congress, too, to wait upon the action of New 
Mexico in framing a constitution before taking any reso- 
lution with regard to that portion of the new domain. 
But the party leaders, lacking the President's soldierly 
definiteness of purpose and directness of action, were 
only made uneasy, they were not guided, by his outspoken 
opinions. During all the autumn, southern governors had 
been talking plainly to their legislatures of secession; 



1848-1850.] Compromise debated. 169 

and although the legislatures held back from every ex- 
treme policy, they were uttering opinions in response 
which made politicians anxious. What between the ex- 
tremists of the North who urged disunion, and the ex- 
'tremists of the South who threatened it, the politician's 
life was rendered very hard to live. 

85. Compromise debated (1850). 

It was under these circumstances that Henry Clay came 
forward, with the dignity of age upon him, to urge meas- 
Clay's pro- ^^es of Compromise. He proposed, Jan. 29, 
posai. 1850, that Congress should admit California 

with her free constitution ; should organize the rest of the 
Mexican cession without any provision at all concerning 
slavery, leaving its establishment or exclusion to the 
course of events and the ultimate choice of the settlers ; 
should purchase from Texas her claim upon a portion of 
New Mexico ; should abolish the slave trade in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, but promise, for the rest, non-inter- 
ference elsewhere with slavery or the interstate slave 
trade ; and should concede to the South an effective fugi- 
tive slave law. The programme was too various to hold 
together. There were majorities, perhaps, for each of its 
proposals separately, but there was no possibility of mak- 
ing up a single majority for all of them taken in a body. 
After an ineffectual debate, which ran through two months, 
direct action upon Mr. Clay's resolutions was avoided by 
their reference to a select committee of thirteen, of which 
Mr. Clay was made chairman. On May 8 this committee 
reported a series of measures, which it proposed should 
be grouped in three distinct bills. The first of these, — 
Omnibus afterwards dubbed the " Omnibus Bill," be- 
BiU- cause of the number of things it was made to 

carry, — proposed the admission of California as a State, 
and the organization of Utah and New Mexico as Terri- 



I/O The Slavery Question. [§85 

tories, without any restriction as to slavery, the adjustment 
of the Texas boundary line, and the payment to Texas of 
ten million dollars by way of indemnity for her claims on 
a portion of New Mexico. The second measure was a 
stringent Fugitive Slave Law. The third prohibited the 
slave trade in the District of Columbia. 

This group of bills of course experienced the same 
difficulties of passage that had threatened Mr. Clay's 
Significant g^oup of rcsolutions. The " Omnibus Bill," 
debate. when taken up, was so stripped by amend- 

ment in tne Senate that it was reduced, before its passage, 
to a few provisions for the organization of the Territory 
of Utah, with or without slaA/ery as events should deter- 
mine ; and Clay withdrew, disheartened, to the sea-shore, 
to regain his strength and spirits. Both what was said 
in debate and what was done out of doors seemed for 
a time to make agreement hopeless. Clay, although he 
abated nothing of his conviction that the federal gov- 
ernment must be obeyed in its supremacy, although 
bolder and more courageous than ever, indeed, in his 
avowal of a determination to stand by the Union and the 
Constitution in any event, nevertheless put away his old- 
time imperiousness, and pleaded as he had never pleaded 
before for mutual accommodation and agreement. Even 
Webster, slackened a little in his constitutional convic' 
tions by profound anxiety for the life of the Constitu- 
tion itself, urged compromise and concession. Calhoun, 
equally anxious to preserve the Constitution, but con- 
vinced of the uselessness to the South of even the Con- 
stitution itself, should the institutions of southern society 
be seriously jeoparded by the action of Congress in the 
Southern pro- flatter of the Territories, put forth the pro- 
gramme, gramme of the southern party with all that 
cold explicitness of which he was so consummate a 
master. The maintenance of the Union, he solemnly 



£850. j Compromise debated. i/i 

declared, depended upon the permanent preservation of a 
perfect equilibrium between the slave holding and the 
free States : that equilibrium could be maintained only 
by some policy which would render possible the creation 
of as many new slave States as free States ; concessions 
of territory had already been made by the South, in the 
establishment of the Missouri compromise line, which 
rendered it extremely doubtful whether that equilibrium 
could be preserved ; the equilibrium must be restored, or 
the Union must go to pieces ; and the action of Congress 
in the admission of California must determine which 
alternative was to be chosen. He privately advised that 
the fighting be forced now to a conclusive issue ; be- 
cause, he said, " we are stronger now than we shall be 
hereafter, poHtically and morally." 

Still more significant, if possible, — for they spoke the 
aggressive purposes of a new party, — were the speeches 
Seward and ^f Senator Seward of New York, and Senator 
Chase. Chasc of Ohio, spokesmen respectively of the 

Free-soil Whigs and Free-soil Democrats. Seward de- 
manded the prompt admission of California, repudiated 
all compromise, and, denying the possibility of any equi- 
librium between the sections, declared the common do- 
main of the country to be devoted to justice and liberty 
by the Constitution not only, but also by " a higher law 
than the Constitution." While deprecating violence or 
any illegal action, he avowed his conviction that slavery 
must give way " to the salutary instructions of economy 
and to the ripening influences of humanit}^; " that " all 
measures which fortify slavery or extend it, tend to the 
consummation of violence, — all that check its extension 
and abate its strength, tend to its peaceful extirpation." 
Chase spoke with equal boldness to the same effect. 

Seward was the President's confidential adviser. Gen- 
eral Taylor had surrounded himself in his cabinet, not 



172 The Slavery Question. [§§85,86 

with the recognized masters of Whig policy, but with 
men who would counsel instead of dictating to him. 
Several of these advisers were Seward's friends ; and thg 
President, like Seward, insisted that California be admit- 
ted without condition or counterbalancing compromise. 

The Texan authorities, when they learned of the action 
of New Mexico in framing a constitution at the Presi- 
Southern dent's suggestion, prepared to assert their 
feeling. claims upon a portion of the New Mexican 

Territory by military force; the governor of Mississippi 
promised assistance ; and southern members of Congress 
who called upon the President expressed the fear that 
southern officers in the federal army would decline to 
obey the orders, which he had promptly issued, to meet 
Texan force with the force of the general government. 
" Then," exclaimed Taylor, " I will command the army 
in person, and any man who is taken in treason against 
the Union I will hang as I did the deserters and spies 
at Monterey." The spirited old man had a soldier's 
instinctive regard for law, and unhesitating impulse to 
execute it. There was a ring as of Jackson in this 
utterance. 

86. Compromise effected (1850). 

But the spirit of compromise ultimately triumphed. 
A state convention in Mississippi, held the previous year, 
Nashville had issucd an address to the southern people, 
convention, proposing that a popular convention of the 
southern States should meet at Nashville, Tennessee, on 
the first Monday in June, 1850. The proposition met 
with favor, and at the appointed time the Nashville 
convention came together; but instead of threatening 
Taylor's disunion, it expressed a confident hope of ac- 
death. commodation. Within a few weeks thereafter 

General Taylor was dead. He had imprudently exposed 



1S50.] Compromise effected. 173 

himself to the sun on the fourth of July ; the fever which 
ensued was at first too httle heeded; and on the ninth of 
July he died, — the type of a brave officer whose work 
was unfinished. 

Once more the Whigs had to accept the second man 
upon their presidential ticket as President; but Mr. Fill- 
more did not thwart them, as Tyler had done. 
He was more docile than the dead President 
would have been. The cabinet was immediately recon- 
structed, with Webster as Secretary of State, and the 
compromise measures prospered in Congress. The new 
President followed his party leaders. By September 20 
the Senate had accepted all the measures that Mr. Clay 
had proposed. The House followed suit, passing the 
bills in such order and combination as it chose, and the 
Compromise of 1850 was complete. 

The result was to leave the Missouri compromise line 

untouched, — for the line still ran all its original length 

across the Louisiana purchase of 1803, — but 

Results of , • r 1 n X • • r 

thccompro- to Open the region 01 the Mexican cession of 
mise. jg^g ^Q slavery, should the course of events 

not prevent its introduction. The slave trade was abol- 
ished in the District of Columbia, but the North was ex- 
asperated by the Fugitive Slave Law, which devoted the 
whole executive power of the general government within 
the free States to the recapture of fugitive slaves. This 
part of the compromise made it certain that antagonisms 
would be hotly excited, not soothingly allayed. Habits 
of accommodation and the mercantile spirit, which 
dreaded any disturbance of the great prosperity which 
had already followed on the heels of the discovery of gold 
in California, had induced compromise ; but other forces 
were to render it ineffectual against the coming crisis. 

While Mr. Clay's compromise committee was deliber- 
ating, Mr. Clayton, President Taylor's Secretary of State, 



174 T^h^ Slavery Question. [§§86,87. 

had concluded with the British authorities, acting through 
their American minister, Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, the 
Clayton-Bul- treaty which was to be known in the United 
wer Treaty. States as the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (April 19, 
1850), establishing a joint Anglo-American protectorate 
over any ship canal that might be cut through the Isthmus 
of Panama. The quick movement of population and trade 
between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the continent 
which had followed upon the discovery of gold in Cali- 
fornia had called into existence many projects for open- 
ing an easy passage from ocean to ocean through the 
Isthmus; and England had competed with the United 
States for the control of this new route of trade by seek- 
ing to gain a commanding influence among the petty 
Central American States. The treaty very fortunately 
effected an amicable adjustment of the questions of right 
which might have followed upon further rivalry. But, 
although a railway was opened across the Isthmus in 
January, 1855, more than thirty years were to elapse 
before a ship canal should be seriously attempted. 

Six months before the passage of the compromise 
measures John C. Calhoun was dead, and one of the 
Death of leading parts in the culminating drama of 
Calhoun. politics was vacant. He died March 31, 1850, 
the central month of the great compromise debate. The 
final turning point had been reached ; he had seen the end 
that must come; and it had broken his heart to see it. 
A new generation was about to rush upon the stage and 
play the tragedy out. 

87. The Fugitive Slave Law (1850-1852). 

For a short time after the passage of the compromise 
measures the country was tranquil. But the quiet was 
not a healthful quiet : it was simply the lethargy of re- 



1793-1850.] Fugitive Slave Law. 175 

action. There was on all hands an anxious determina- 
tion to be satisfied, — to keep still, and not arouse again 
the terrible forces of disruption which had so 
after^he^^^ Startled the country in the recent legislative 
compromise, struggle, — but nobody was really satisfied. 
That the leaders who had made themselves responsible 
for the compromise were still profoundly uneasy was soon 
made abundantly evident to every one. Mr. Webster 
went about anxiously reproving agitation. These meas- 
ures of accommodation between the two sections, he in- 
sisted, were a new compact, a new stay and support for the 
Constitution ; and no one who loved the Constitution and 
the Union ought to dare to touch them. Mr. Clay took 
similar ground. Good resolutions were everywhere de- 
voted to keeping down agitation. Party magnates sought 
to allay excitement by declaring that there was none. 

But the Fugitive Slave Law steadily defeated these 
purposes of peace. The same section of the Constitu- 
tion which commanded the rendering up by 
tionaipro- the States to each other of fugitives from jus- 
visions. ^j^g T^^^ provided also that persons " held to 

service or labor in one State under the laws thereof, 
escaping into another," should be delivered up on the 
claim of the party to whom such service might be due ; 
and so early as 1793 Congress had passed a law intended 
to secure the execution of this section with regard to both 
classes of fugitives (Formation of the Union, § 79). Ap- 
parently it had been meant to lay the duty of returning 
both fugitives from justice and fugitives from service upon 
the state authorities ; but while considerations of mutual 
advantage had made it easy to secure the interstate ren- 
Theoidlaw dition of Criminals, there had been a growing 
ineffective, slackness in the matter of rendering up fugi- 
tive slaves. The Supreme Court of the United States, 
moreover, had somewhat complicated the matter by de 



176 The Slavery Question, [§87. 

ciding, in the case of Prigg\%. Pe7t7isylvania (1842), that 
the federal government could not impose upon state of- 
ficials the duty of executing a law of the United States, 
as it had sought to do in the legislation of 1793. Local 
magistrates, therefore, might decline to issue warrants for 
the arrest or removal of fugitive slaves. In view of the 
increasing unwillingness of the free States to take any part 
in the process, the southern members of Congress in- 
sisted that the federal government should itself make 
more effective provision for the execution of the Consti- 
tution in this particular; and it was part of the compro- 
mise accommodation of 1850 that this demand should be 
complied with. 

Doubtless it would have been impossible to frame any 
law which would have been palatable to the people of 
Provisions the free States. But the Fugitive Slave Act 
of the Act. Qf i3^Q seemed to embrace as many irritat- 
ing provisions as possible. In order to meet the views 
of the Supreme Court, the whole duty of enforcing the 
Act was put upon officers of the United States. Warrant 
for the arrest or removal of a fugitive slave was to pro- 
ceed in every case from a judge or commissioner of the 
United States; this warrant was to be executed by a 
marshal of the United States, who could not decline to ex- 
ecute it under a penalty of one thousand dollars, and who 
would be held responsible under his official bond for the 
full value of any slave who should escape from his custody; 
all good citizens were required to assist in the execution 
of the law when called upon to do so, and a heavy fine, 
besides civil damages to the owner of the slave, was to 
be added to six months imprisonment for any assistance 
given the fugitive or any attempt to effect his rescue ; 
the simple affidavit of the person who claimed the negro 
was to be sufficient evidence of ownership, sufficient 
basis for the certificate of the court or commissioner; 



1842-1852.] Fugitive Slave Law. lyy 

and this certificate was to be conclusive as against the 
operation of the writ of habeas corpus. 

The law, moreover, was energetically and immediately 
put into operation by slave owners. In some cases ne- 
Resistance to gToes who had long since escaped into the 
Its execution, northern States, and who had settled and 
married there, were seized upon the affidavit of their 
former owners, and by force of the federal government 
carried away into slavery again. Riots and rescues be- 
came frequent in connection with the execution of pro- 
cess under the law. One of the most notable cases 
occurred in Boston, where, in February, 1851, a negro 
named Shadrach was rescued from the United States 
marshal by a mob composed for the most part of ne- 
groes, and enabled to escape into Canada. 

It was impossible to quiet feeling and establish the com- 
promise measures in the esteem of the people while such 
a law, a part of that compromise, was being 
misunder- pressed to execution in such a way. Neither 
standing. section, moreover, understood or esteemed the 
purpose or spirit of the other. " Many of the slave 
holding States," Clay warned his fellow Whigs in the 
North, when they showed signs of restlessness under 
the operation of the Fugitive Slave Law, "and many 
public meetings of the people in them, have deliberately 
declared that their adherence. to the Union depends upon 
the preservation of that law, and that its abandonment 
would be the signal of the dissolution of the Union." 
But most northern men thought that the South had 
threatened chiefly for effect, and would not venture to 
carry out half her professed purpose, should she be 
defeated. Southern men, on their part, esteemed very 
slightingly the fighting spirit of the North. They re- 
garded it disdainfully as a section given over to a self- 
seeking struggle for wealth, and they knew commercial 



178 The Slavery Question. [§§87,83. 

wealth to be pusillanimous to a degree when it came to 
meeting threats of war and disastrous disturbances of 
trade. 

88. Presidential Campaign of 1852. 

It was under such circumstances that the presidential 
campaign of 1852 occurred. The Democratic conven- 
^^ . . tion met in Baltimore on June i, 1852. The 

Nominations , ,. ,. , , i • • 

leadmg candidates for the nommation were 
Lewis Cass of Michigan, James Buchanan of Pennsyl- 
vania, and Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois ; but the rule 
of Democratic conventions which made a two thirds 
vote necessary for the choice of a candidate, rendered 
it impossible, as it turned out, to nominate any one 
of these gentlemen. The convention, therefore, turned 
by a sudden impulse to a younger and comparatively 
unknown man, and nominated Franklin Pierce of New 
Hampshire. Mr. Pierce was a handsome and prepos- 
sessing man of forty-eight, who had served his State both 
in her own legislature and in Congress, and who had 
engaged in the Mexican War, with the rank of brigadier 
general; but in none of these positions had he won dis- 
tinction for anything so much as for a certain grace and 
candor of bearing. The Whig delegates, who met in con- 
vention in the same city on June 16, put aside the states- 
men of their party, as so often before, and nominated 
General Winfield Scott. 

The platforms were significant of the critical state of 
politics. Both Whigs and Democrats added to their 
_, , usual declaration of principles anxious assev- 

Platforms . r i • • . r • .11 

erations oi their entire satisfaction with the 
compromise measures. The Democrats went even fur- 
ther. They declared that they would "faithfully abide by 
and uphold the principles laid down in the Kentucky and 
Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and 1799, and the Report 



1852.] Presidential Campaign. 179 

of Mr. Madison to the Virginia Legislature in 1799," — 
adopting those principles " as constituting one of the 
main foundations of their political creed," and resolving 
"to carry them out in their obvious meaning and im* 
port." But the principles of opposition w^hich the two 
great national parties so much dreaded were spoken with 
great plainness by the Free Soil convention, 
Soiiconven- which met at Pittsburg, August 11. This 
*'°°" P3-rty repeated its utterances of 1848, pro- 

nounced the Fugitive Slave Law repugnant both to the 
principles of law and the spirit of Christianity, and 
announced its programme to be : " No more slave States, 
no more slave Territories, no nationalized slavery, and no 
national legislation for the extradition of slaves." The 
Free Soilers did not command the same strength that 
they had mustered in 1848, for the country was trying 
to rest ; but scores of Whigs, not yet prepared to vote 
with this third party, were greatly repelled both by the 
military candidate of their party and by its slavish ac- 
quiescence in the distasteful compromise of 1850. The 
Democrats, on the other hand, were satisfied both with 
their party and their candidate, and the election was to 
bring them an overwhelming triumph. 

Before the end of the campaign both Mr. Clay and 
Mr. Webster were dead. Mr. Clay was on his death-bed 
^ , ^ when the Whis: convention met. He died on 

Deaths of *= 

Clay and the 29th of June, 1852. Mr. Webster fol- 
Webster. \q^^^q^ him on the 23d of October. The 
great leaders of the past were gone : the future v/as for 
new men and new parties. 

Although his popular majority was small in the aggre- 
gate vote, Mr. Pierce carried every State except four 
(Vermont, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Kentucky), 
and received two hundred and fifty-four electoral votes, to 
General Scott's forty-two. At the same time the Demo* 



i8o The Slavery Question. t§§88»89. 

cratic majority in the House of Representatives was 
increased by thirty-seven, in the Senate by six. Before 
another presidential election came around, the Whig 
party had practically been ousted from its place of na-' 
tional importance by the Republicans, — the great fusion 
party of the opponents of the extension of slavery. 

89. Symptoms of Change (1851-1853). 

In the mean time a most singular party pressed forward 
as a candidate for the vacant place. This was the party 
Anti-foreign which Called itself " American," but which its 
movement, opponents dubbcd the " Know Nothing " party. 
Once and again there had been strong efforts made in 
various parts of the country against the influence of for- 
eigners in our politics. As immigration increased, these 
movements naturally become more frequent and more 
pronounced. They were most pronounced, too, in the 
cities of the eastern seaboard, into which immigration 
poured its first streams, and where it left its most un- 
savory deposits, — where, consequently, municipal mis- 
rule was constantly threatening its worst consequences of 
corruption and disorder. In 1844 "native" majorities 
had carried the cities of New York and Philadelphia, 
and had sent from those cities several representatives to 
Congress. For a short time after that date the feel- 
ing disappeared again; but about 1852 it was revived, for 
its final run of success. The revolutionary movements 
^ of 1848-1850 in Europe caused a sudden in- 

Nothing" crease in the immigration of disappointed and 
organization, turbulent men, apt and ambitious in political 
agitation. A secret order was formed, whose motto was : 
** Americans must rule America." From it emanated 
counsels which, commanding the votes in many places of 
active and united minorities, not infrequently determined 



1851-1853.] Symptoms of Change. 181 

the results of local elections. The order had its hier- 
archy; only those who attained to its highest ranks were 
inducted into its most sacred mysteries ; and it was the 
constant profession of entire ignorance of its secrets by 
members of the order that gave them their popular name 
of " Know Nothings." A singular opportunity for poHti- 
cal importance was presently to come to this party. 

In the summer of 1852 appeared a new engine of anti- 
slavery sentiment, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's power- 
«. TT , fully written novel, *' Uncle Tom's Cabin," 

Uncle • 1 • .... 

Tom's With Its moving imaginative portrayal of the 

^^^'°-' pathos, the humor, the tragedy, the terror of 

the slavery system. While it unquestionably showed what 
might come out of the system, it was built upon wholly 
exceptional incidents. It was a product of the sympa- 
thetic imagination, which the historian must reject as 
quite misleading, but it nevertheless stirred to their pro- 
foundest depths thousands of minds in the North which 
the politician might never have reached with his protests 
against the extension of slavery. It was a subtle instru- 
ment of power, and played no small part in creating the 
anti-slavery party, which was presently to show its strength 
upon so great a scale in national politics. 

All the while the industrial development of the country 
went on as if there were no politics. From May to Oc- 
tober, 1 85 1, the world attended England's 
" "^ '^' great international industrial Exhibition, which 
the noble Prince Consort had so humanely planned in the 
interest of universal peace. The foreign trade of the 
United States steadily grew in volume, receiving its im- 
pulse in part, of course, from the great gold discoveries 
in California. A transcontinental railway was spoken of. 
. The population, while it became more and 

Population. , , 

more dense, grew also more and more hetero- 
geneous. It was at this time that Chinese first appeared 



1 82 The Slavery Question. [§§89,90. 

in strong numbers upon the Pacific coast, bringing with 
them a new and agitating social problem. The year 
1 85 1 saw the first state law prohibiting the manufacture 
and sale of intoxicating liquors come into operation in 
Maine, — a provocation to similar experiments elsewhere. 
In the autumn of 1851 the country welcomed Louis Kos- 
suth, the exiled Hungarian patriot, heard his engaging 
eloquence with a novel rapture, and accorded him the 
hearty sympathies of a free people. 

90. Bepeal of the Missouri CompromisQ (1854). 

The Democratic Congress elected along with Franklin 
Pierce met Dec. 5, 1853, and easily effected an organiza- 
tion. The President's message assured the country of Mr. 
Pierce's loyal adherence to the compromise of 1850, and of 
the continued reign throughout the country of that peace 
and tranquillity which had marked the quiet close of his 
predecessor's term. But immediately after Christmas, on 
Jan. 4, 1854, Mr. Stephen A. Douglas introduced into the 
Senate, as chairman of its Committee on Territories, a 
bill, providing for the organization of the Territory of Ne- 
braska, which was destined to destroy at once all hope 
of tranquillity. The region stretching beyond Missouri 
" Platte to the Rocky Mountains, then called the 

country." a Platte country," which this bill proposed to 
organize as a Territory, was crossed by the direct over- 
land route to the Pacific. Mr. Douglas had been trying 
ever since 1843, when he was a member of the House, 
to secure the consent of Congress to its erection into a 
Territory, in order to prevent its being closed to set- 
tlement and travel by treaties with the Indian tribes, 
which might otherwise convert it into an Indian reserve. 
The bill which Mr. Douglas now introduced into the 
Senate from the Committee on Territories differed, how- 



1854-J Repeal of Misso2iri Compromise. 183 

ever, in one radical feature from all former proposals. 
The Platte country lay wholly within the Louisiana pur- 
chase, and all of it that was to be affected by this legisla- 
tion lay north of the Missouri compromise line, 36° 30', 
which had been run across that purchase in 1820. All 
previous proposals, therefore, for the erection of a Terri- 
tory there had taken it for granted that slavery had once 
for all been excluded by the action taken when Missouri 
The Ne- was admitted. This latest bill, however, ex- 
braska bill, pressly provided that any State or States sub- 
sequently made up out of the new Territory should 
exercise their own choice in the matter. This, Douglas 
urged, was simply following the precedent set in the 
organization of the Territories of Utah and New Mexico 
four years before, a strict adherence to the "principle " 
of which was, he insisted, dictated by " a proper sense of 
patriotic duty." The measure was at once attacked by 
amendment ; and in order to avoid a tinkering of their 
bill in open Senate, the committee secured its recommit- 
ment. On January 23 they produced a substitute measure, 
Kansas-Ne- which proposed the creation, not of a single 
braska Bill. Territory, but of two Territories, one of which 
should embrace the lands lying between latitudes 37° and 
40°, and be known as Kansas; the other, those lying 
between latitudes 40° and 43° 30', and be known as 
Nebraska. The bill further provided that all laws of the 
United States should be extended to these 

Popular sov- , . i . i i • r i 

ereignty 1 emtones, " except the eighth section of the 

clause. ^^|. preparatory to the admission of Missouri 

into the Union, approved March 6, 1820 [the " compro- 
mise " section], which, being inconsistent with the prin- 
ciples of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the 
States and Territories, as recognized by the legislation 
of 1850, commonly called the compromise measures, is 
hereby declared inoperative and void." It was declared 



184 The Slavery Question. [§§90,91. 

to be the " true intent and meaning " of the Act, " not to 
legislate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to ex- 
clude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof per- 
fectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions 
in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the 
United States." Finally, it was provided that the Fugi- 
tive Slave Law should extend to the Territories. 

No bolder or more extraordinary measure had ever 
been proposed in Congress ; and it came upon the coun- 
Audacity of try like a thief in the night, without warning 
the bill. Qj. expectation, when parties were trying to 

sleep off the excitement of former debates about the ex- 
tension of slavery. Southern members had never dreamed 
of demanding a measure like this, expressly repealing the 
Missouri compromise, and opening all the Territories 
to slavery; and no one but Douglas would have dared 
to offer it to them, — Douglas, with his strong, coarse 
grained, unsensitive nature, his western audacity, his love 
of leading, and leading boldly, in the direction whither, 
as it seemed to him, there lay party strength. Mr. Pierce, 
it seems, had been consulted about the measure before- 
hand, and had given it his approbation, saying that he 
deemed it founded "upon a sound principle, which the 
compromise of 1820 infringed upon," and to which such 
a bill would enable the country to return. Not a few 
able and aggressive opponents of the extension of slavery 
had of late been added to Seward and Chase in the 
Senate. Hamilton Fish had been sent from New York, 
Solomon Foote from Vermont, Benjamin Wade from 
Ohio, and from Massachusetts Charles Sumner, who had 
declared very boldly his distaste for the Fugitive Slave 
Law, and his determination to oppose every attempt 
either to carry freedom to the slave States or the sec- 
tional evil of slavery into the free States. These men 
made every effort, of course, to prevent the passage of 



r854] Repeal of Missouri Compromise, 185 

the bill ; but they were overwhelmingly outvoted. The 
southern members gladly accepted what they had not 
Passage of asked for, and the northern Democrats reck- 
thebiii. lessly followed Douglas. The Senate passed 

the bill by a vote of 37 to 14. Similar influences carried 
it through the House by a vote of 113 to 100. Douglas 
commanded the votes of forty-four northern Democrats, 

— just half the Democratic delegation from that section, 

— and nearly the whole southern vote. Nine southern 
members voted with the northern Whigs, and forty-four 
northern Democrats in the negative. On May 30 the 
President signed the bill, and it became law. 

01. The Kansas Struggle {1854-1857). 

The Act sowed the wind ; the whirlwind was not long 
in coming. The compromise measures of 1850 had, of 
course, affected only the Territories acquired from 
Mexico ; no one till now had dreamed that they re-acted 
to the destruction of the compromise of 1820, — a meas- 
ure which applied to a region quite distinct, and which 
was now more than thirty years deep in our politics. To 
the North, the Kansas-Nebraska Act seemed the very 
extravagance of aggression on the part of the slave in- 
terest, the very relEinement of bad faith, and a violation of 
The law's ^^e most Solemn guarantees of policy. The 
ambiguity. ]-)jii^ moreover, contained a fatal ambiguity. 
When and in what manner were the squatter sovereigns 
of Kansas and Nebraska to make their choice with 
regard to slavery? Now, during the period of settle- 
ment, and while the districts were still Territories.? or 
afterwards, when ready for statehood and about to frame 
their constitutions? No prohibition was put upon the 
territorial legislatures of Kansas and Nebraska: were 
they at liberty to proceed to make their choice at once ? 



1 86 The Slavery Question. [§§91,92. 

Whatever may have been the intention of the framers of 
the law, purposeful action in the matter did begin at once 
and fiercely, hurrying presently to the length of civil war. 
Organized Both from the North and from the South 
movement an Organized movement was made to secure 
the Territory of Kansas by immediate settle- 
ment The settlers who were in the slave interest came 
first, pouring in from Missouri. Then came bands of 
settlers from the free States, sent or assisted by emi- 
gration aid societies. The Missouri men hastened to 
effect a territorial organization; carried the elections to 
the territorial legislature, — when necessary by the open 
use of voters from Missouri at the polls; and the pro- 
slavery legislature which they chose met and adopted, 
in addition to the laws of Missouri in bulk, a stringent 
penal code directed against all interferences with the 
institution of slavery. The free settlers attempted to 
ignore the government thus organized, on the ground of 
Topeka con- its fraudulent nature. They met in convention 
stitution. 2it Topeka, October, 1855, adopted a free con- 
stitution for themselves, and ventured in January, 1856, 
to set up a government of their own. But the legal 
advantage was with the other side ; whether fraudulently 
established or not, the pro-slavery government had at any 
rate been set up under the forms of law, and the federal 
government interfered in its behalf. As the struggle 
advanced, free settlers came in greater and greater num- 
bers, and came armed, after the example of their Mis- 
souri rivals. Actual warfare ensued, and the interposition 
of federal troops became necessary. At last, in October, 
Free settlers '^^S7i ^he free Settlers gained control at the 
gain control. Y)o\\s of the legitimate legislature of the Terri- 
tory, and the game was lost for slavery. A constitution 
was adopted without slavery, and with that constitution 
the Territory sought admission to the Union as a State. 



1854-1857-] The Kansas Str2iggle. 187 

In July, 1856, the House of Representatives had passed 
a bill for the admission of Kansas as a State, under the 
constitution adopted by the free settlers at Topeka, but 
the Senate had rejected it. 

92. The Kepublican Party (1854-1856). 

The majority which put the Kansas-Nebraska bill 
through the House in 1854 was destroyed in the elections 
"Anti-Ne- of the Same year. All " Anti-Nebraska " men 
braska" men. (^revv away from the old parties. Most of 
these, however, were Whigs, and had no taste for the 
companionships which would be thrust upon them should 
they enter the Free Soil party. In this dilemma they 
took refuge with the " Know Nothings," who volunteered, 
with reference to the slavery question, to be Do Noth- 
ings. A desperate attempt was made to create a diver- 
sion, and by sheer dint of will to forget the slavery 
question altogether. Southern Whigs for a time retained 
their party name, and tried to maintain also their party 
organization; but even in the South the Know Nothings 
were numerously joined, and for a brief space it looked 
as if they were about to become in fact a national party. 
„^ ^ In the elections of 1854 they succeeded in 

Nothing electing, not only a considerable number of 
successes Congressmen, but also their candidates for 
the governorship in Massachusetts and Delaware. Before 
the new House met, in December, 1855, the Know 
Nothings had carried New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Kentucky, and 
California, and had polled handsome votes, which fell 
very little short of being majorities, in six of the southern 
States. 

What with Anti-Nebraska men and Free Soilers, Dem- 
ocrats, southern pro-slavery Whigs, and Know Noth- 



i83 The Slavery Question. [§§92,93- 

ings, the House of Representatives which met Dec. 3, 
1855, presented an almost hopeless mixture and confu- 
sion of party names and purposes. It spent two months 
"Repubii- ii^ electing a Speaker. Within a year, how- 
can" party, ever, the fusion party temporarily known in 
Congress as Anti-Nebraska men drew together in cohe- 
rent organization under the name " Republican." Groups 
of its adherents had adopted that name in the spring of 
1854, when first concerting opposition to the policy of the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill. It was no sooner organized thaa 
it grew apace. Within the first year of its existence it 
obtained popular majorities in fifteen States, elected, or 
won over to itself, one hundred and seventeen members 
of the House of Representatives, and secured eleven 
adherents in the Senate. Representatives of all the 
older parties came together in its ranks, in novel agree- 
ment, their purposes mastered and brought into impera- 
tive concert by the signal crisis which had been 
precipitated upon the country by the repeal of the 
Missouri compromise. It got its programme from the 
Free Soilers, whom it bodily absorbed; its radical and 
aggressive spirit from the Abolitionists, whom it received 
without liking ; its liberal views upon constitutional ques- 
tions from the Whigs, who constituted both in numbers 
and in influence its commanding element ; and its popular 
impulses from the Democrats, who did not leave behind 
them, when they joined it, their faith in their old party 
ideals. 

93. Territorial Aggrandizement (1853-1854). 

Every sign of the times was calculated to quicken the 
energy and form the purposes of this new party. Not 
only did the struggle in Kansas constantly add fuel to 
the flame of excitement about the extension of slavery 
into the Territories, but it seemed that an end had not 



1 853- 1855] Territorial Aggrandizement. 189 

yet been made of adding new Territories to those already 
acquired. Only four or five months before the adoption 
of the Kansas-Nebraska Act a new region had been 
The Gads- purchased from Mexico. The treaty of Gua- 
den purchase. dalupe-Hidalgo (§ ^l) had not satisfied Mexico 
with regard to the definition of the southern boundaries of 
the territories which she had surrendered to the United 
States on the Pacific coast. She still claimed a consider- 
able region south of the Gila River, which crosses the 
southern portion of the present Territory of Arizona. 
Santa Anna even led an army into the disputed district, 
and made threat of a renewal of war. Hostilities were 
averted, however, by a new purchase. Acting through 
Mr. Gadsden, the federal government agreed, Dec. 30, 
1853, to pay Mexico ten million dollars for the something 
more than forty-five thousand square miles of territory 
in controversy, and the southwestern boundary was at 
last finally fixed. 

This was the addition also of new territory in the re- 
gion m.ost likely to be occupied by slavery ; and appar- 
ently annexations in the interest of slavery were not to 
end there. There seemed to be a growing desire on the 
part of the South to see Cuba wrested from Spain, and 
added as new slave territory to the United States. 
Some of the more indiscreet and daring of the southern 
politicians even became involved in attempts to seize 
Cuba and effect a revolutionary expulsion of the Spanish 
power. In 1854, under pressure of the southern party, 
Mr. Pierce directed the American ministers to Great 
Britain, France, and Spain (James Buchanan, John Y. 
Mason, and Pierre Soul^) to meet and discuss the Cuban 
"Ostend question. The result was the " Ostend Mani- 
Manifesto." f gsto " of October i8, 1854, which gave deep 
offence to the Free Soil party. Meeting at Ostend, these 
gentlemen agreed to report to their government that in 



190 The Slavery Question. [§§ 93, 94. 

their opinion, the acquisition of Cuba would be advanta- 
geous to the United States ; and that if Spain refused to 
sell it, the United States would be justified in wresting it 
from her, rather than see it Africanized, as San Domingo 
had been. Expeditions, too, were organized by a few 
southern men against Central America, and repeated, 
though futile, attempts made to gain new territory to the 
south of Texas. The men who engaged in these mad at- 
tempts at conquest acted without organized support or 
responsible recognition by any southern gov- 
ernment ; but the North regarded their actions, 
nevertheless, as symptomatic of the most alarming ten-, 
dencies, the most revolutionary purposes. The South, 
on its part, presently saw the contest for supremacy in 
Kansas turn overwhelmingly against the slave owners; 
saw free Territories rapidly preparing to become free 
States ; saw fast approaching the destruction of the sec- 
tional equilibrium in the Senate. Parties formed and 
planned accordingly. 

94. Presidential Campaign of 1856. 

The Presidential campaign of 1856 was a four-cornered 

contest. The first party to prepare a platform and put 

,, , forward candidates was the American, or 

Know Noth- ^_ -..x i • i ,• i i i 

ingconven- Know Nothmg, whose convention assembled 
tion. Yt)o. 22, 1856, in Philadelphia. It nominated 

for President Mr. Fillmore, and in its platform it repeated 
those declarations in favor of restricting the privileges of 
foreigners, and of respecting the Constitution and the re- 
served rights of the States, by which it thought to divert 
attention from slavery and secure peace. But a minority 
of the members withdrew even from this peace loving 
convention, because they could not obtain a satisfactory 
utterance on the slavery question. 



1856.] Presidential Campaign. 191 

The Democratic convention met in Cincinnati on the 
2d of June. The party, in spite of some serious breaks 
in its ranks, still substantially preserved its 
integrity. The southern delegates wished the 
renomination of Mr. Pierce ; moderate northern men 
preferred Mr. Buchanan, who, because of his absence 
on a foreign mission, had not been obliged to take 
public ground on the territorial question ; some de- 
sired the nomination of Mr. Douglas. On the seven- 
teenth ballot Mr. Buchanan was nominated. Mr. John 
C. Breckinridge of Kentucky who represented the 
slaveholding southern element, was named for the vice- 
presidency. To the usual Democratic platform were 
added a strong reiteration of the party's devotion to 
the principles of the compromise of 1850 and a for- 
mal indorsement of the theory of non-intervention with 
slavery in the Territories embodied in the Kansas- 
Nebraska Act of 1854. Finally, there came an almost 
pathetic insistence that there were " questions connected 
with the foreign policy of this country which are in- 
ferior to no domestic questions whatever," as preamble 
to the hope that the United States might control the 
means of communication between the two oceans, and 
might by some means assure its ascendency in the Gulf 
of Mexico. 

The Republican party held its first national convention 
in Philadelphia on the 17th of June. All the northern 
_ , ,. States were represented, but no others except 

Republicans, n^ i , -.^ , , ^ 

Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky. The 
party was as yet too young to have produced tried and 
accredited leaders. It therefore put forward as its can- 
didate for the presidency John C. Fremont, a young 
officer who had aided in the conquest of California (§ T]), 
The platform was brief and emphatic. It declared that 
neither Congress, nor a territorial legislature, nor any in- 



192 The Slavery Question. [§94, 

dividual or association of individuals, had any authority 
"to give legal existence to slavery in any Territory while 
the present Constitution shall be maintained." It de- 
nounced the whole action of the government with regard 
to Kansas, and demanded the immediate admission of 
that Territory as a free State, It pronounced the argu- 
ment of the Ostend circular to be " the highwayman's 
plea, that might makes right." Finally, it urged a rail- 
way to the Pacific, as well as such appropriations by Con- 
gress for the improvement of rivers and harbors as might 
be " required for the accommodation and security of our 
existing commerce." Such was its Free-Soil-Anti-Ne- 
braska-Whig creed. Its nomination of Fremont, who 
had been reckoned a Democrat, was its recognition of 
the Democracy. 

A remnant of the Whig party met in Baltimore on 
September 17 and accepted Mr. Fillmore, the nominee of 
the Know Nothings, as their own candidate, 
^^^' declaring that they saw in such a choice the 

only refuge for those who loved the Constitution as it 
was, and the compromises by which it had recently been 
bolstered up. 

The Democratic candidates were elected. They re- 
ceived one hundred and seventy-four of the electoral 
votes, as against one hundred and fourteen 
for Fremont, and eight (those of Maryland) 
for Fillmore. But the strength displayed by the Repub- 
licans was beyond measure startling. Their popular 
vote had been 1,341,264, while that for Buchanan was 
only 1,838,169. They carried every northern State but 
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, and Illinois, and had 
gained portentous strength even in those States. In the 
West they were practically the only party which disputed 
supremacy with the Democrats ; and hereafter they were 
to be the only powerful party standing face to face with 



1S56.] Presidential Campaign. 193 

the Democrats in the East. The Know Nothings and 
the Whigs vanished from the field of national politics. 
Parties were to be henceforth both compact and section- 
alized. One more administration, and then the wind 
sown in 1854 shall have sprung into a whirlwind. 



IV. 

SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR 

(1856-1865). 

95. Keferences. 

Bibliographies. — Lalor's Cyclopaedia (Johnston's articles on 
"Secession," " Dred Scott Case," "Rebellion," "Confederate 
States"); W.E.Foster's References to the History of Presidential 
Administrations, 40-49 ; Channing and Hart, Guide to American 
History, ^>§ 56a, 56b, 203-214 ; Bartlett's Literature of the Rebellion ; 
T. O. Sumner, in Papers of American Historical Association, iv. 332- 
345 ; A. B. Hart's Federal Government, § 40. 

Historical Maps. — Nos. 3, 4, this volume (Epoch Maps, Nos. 
12, 13); MacCoun's Historical Geography, series "National Growth," 
1848-1853, 1853-1889; series " Development of the Commonwealth," 
1861, 1863 ; Labberton's Historical Atlas, pi. Ixxi. ; Scribner's Sta- 
tistical Atlas, pi. 16 ; Comte de Paris's History of the Civil War in 
America, Atlas ; Scudder's History of the United States, 375, 378,386, 
396, 401, 403, 411 ; Theodore A. Dodge's Bird's-Eye View of the Civil 
War, passim ; Johnston's School History of the United States, 293. 

General Accounts. — Johnston's American Politics, chaps, xix., 
XX. ; Channing's Student's History of the United States, §§ 314-374 ; 
Bryant and Gay's History of the United States, iv., chaps, xvi.-xxiii. ; 
Larned's History for Ready Reference; H. von Hoist's Constitutional 
History of the United States, vi., vii. (to 1861); J. F. Rhodes's His- 
tory of the United States, ii. (1854-1860); James Schouler's History 
of the United States, v. 370-512 (to 1861); Jefferson Davis's Rise 
and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol. i. (parts i., iii.), vol. ii. ; 
Henry Wilson's Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, ii. 
(chaps. XXV. -Iv.), iii. (chaps, i.-xxxi.) ; James G. Blaine's Twenty 
Years of Congress, i. (chaps, vii.-xxvi.) ; J. G. Nicolay atid John 
Hay's Abraham Lincoln, a History, vols, ii.-x. 

Special Histories. — Edward Stanwood's History of Presidential 
Elections, chaps, xx., xxi. ; Horace Greeley's American Conflict, i. 
(chaps, xxi.-xxxviii.) ; E. A. Pollard's Lost Cause (chap. v. to end); 
Joseph Hodgson's Cradle of the Confederacy (chaps, xiv. et seg.) ; G. T. 



Bibliography. 195 

Curtis's Buchanan, ii. 187-630; Henry J. Raymond's Life of Lincoln: 
F. W. Seward's Seward at Washington, i., xxxix.--lxvii., ii., i.-xl. ; 
L. G, Tyler's Lives of the Tylers ; P. Stovall's Toombs, 140-285 ; 
John W. Draper's Civil War, i., chap. xxvi. et seq., ii., iii.; Edward 
McPherson's Political History of the Rebellion ; Comte de Paris's 
Military History of the Civil War ; William H. Seward's Diplomatic 
History of the Civil War ; F. W. Taussig's Tariff History of the 
United States, 155-170; A, S. Bolles's Financial History of the 
United States, ii., chaps, xv,, iii. book i. ; Theodore A. Dodge's 
Bird's-Eye View of the Civil War ; John C. Ropes's History of the 
Civil War ; Leverett W. Spring's Kansas ; N. S. Shaler's Kentucky ; 
C. F. Adams, Jr.'s Charles Francis Adams (in preparation) ; John T. 
Morse, Jr.'s Abraham Lincoln; J. K. Lothrnp's William H. Seward ; 
Olmsted's Cotton Kingdom; Marion G, McDougall's Fugitive Slaves; 
Mary Tremain's Slavery in the District of Columbia ; Trent's Life of 
W. G. Simms ; A. M. Williams's Sam Houston ; Dabney's Defence 
of Virginia ; Smedes's Memorials of a Southern Planter ; Mahan's 
David Farragut. 

Contemporary Accounts. — Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia 
for the several years (particularly under the titles " Congress of the 
United States," " Congress, Confederate," *' Confederate States," 
"United States," "Army," " Navy"); Horace Greeley's American 
Conflict, ii., and History of the Great Rebellion; Herndon's Life of 
Lincoln (chaps, xii. et seq.) ; L. E. Chittenden's Recollections of Presi- 
dent Lincoln and his Administration; O. A. Brownson's American 
Republic (chap, xii.); Alexander H. Stephens's War between the 
States, ii. 241-631, and appendices; George Cary Eggleston's A 
Rebel's Recollections; Jones's A Rebel War Clerk's Diary; J. H. 
Gilmer's Southern Politics ; Thurlow Weed's Autobiography (chaps. 
Ixi.-lxv.) ; G. W. Curtis's Correspondence of J. L. Motley, i. (chaps, 
xiii.), ii. (chaps, i.-vi.); Hugh McCulloch's Men and Measures of 
Half a Century (chaps, xiv.-xviii., xxi., xxii.); U. S, Grant's Per- 
sonal Memoirs; W. T. Sherman's Memoirs; S. S. Cox's Three 
Decades of Federal Legislation, 1855-1S85 (chaps, i.-xvi.); Ben: 
Perley Poore's Perley's Reminiscences, ii. (chaps, i.-xvi.); Henry A. 
Wise's Seven Decades of the Union (chap, xiv.) ; James S. Pike's 
First Blows of the Civil War, 355-526 (to 1861) ; Alexander John- 
ston's Representative American Orations, iii. (parts v., vi.); William 
H. Seward's Autobiography; Buchanan's Buchanan's Administration ; 
Reuben Davis's Recollections of Mississippi and Mississippians ; 
Dabney H. Maury's Recollections of a Virginian ; A. T. Porter's 
Led on Step by Step. 



196 Secession and Civil War. [§§96,97. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
SECESSION (1856-1861). 

96. Finajicial Stringency (1857). 

A WIDESPREAD financial stringency distressed the coun- 
try during the first year of Mr. Buchanan's administration. 
Commercial Ever since 1846 there had been very great 
development, prosperity in almost all branches of trade and 
manufacture. Great advances had been made in the 
mechanic arts, and easy channels both of domestic and 
of international trade had been multiphed in every direc- 
tion by the rapid extension of railways and of steam 
navigation; so that the stimulus of enterprise, along 
with the quickening influences of the great gold dis- 
coveries, had been transmitted in all directions. But 
this period of prosperity and expansion, like all others 
of its kind, brought its own risks and penalties. Sound 
business methods presently gave way to reckless specu- 
lation. There was an excessive expansion of business ; 
many enterprises were started which did not fulfil their 
first promise; there were heavy losses as well as great 
gains ; and at last there came uneasiness, the contraction 
of loans, failures, and panic. 

The revenue laws, it was thought, contributed to in- 
crease the difficulties of the business situation, by draw- 
ing the circulating medium of the country into the 
Treasury, chiefly through the tariff duties, and keeping 
it there in the shape of an augmenting surplus. With 
a view, therefore, to relieving the stringency of the money 
market, Congress undertook a revision of the tariff. The 



1857-3 Financial Stri^igency. 197 

other, more critical, questions of the day seem to have 
absorbed partisan purpose, and this revision differed 
Tariff from previous tariff legislation in the temper- 

of 1857. ateness of view and equity of purpose with 

which it was executed. In the short session of the 
thirty-fourth Congress (i 856-1 857) all parties united in 
reducing the duties on the protected articles of the exist- 
ing tariff to twenty-four per cent, and in putting on the 
free list many of the raw materials of manufacture. It 
was hoped thus to get money out of the Treasury and 
into trade again. Financial crisis, however, was not pre- 
vented, but disturbed the whole of the year 1857. 



97. The Dred Scott Decision (1867). 

A brief struggle brought the business of the country 
out of its difficulties; but the strain of politics was not so 
soon removed, and a decision of the Supreme 
Court now hurried the country forward towards 
the infinitely greater crisis of civil war. Dred Scott was 
the negro slave of an army surgeon. His master had 
taken him, in the regular course of military service, from 
Missouri, his home, first into the State of Illinois, and 
then, in May, 1836, to Fort Snelling, on the west side of 
the Mississippi, in what is now Minnesota; after which, 
in 1838, he had returned with him to Missouri. Slavery 
was prohibited by state law in Illinois, and by the Missouri 
Compromise Act of 1820 in the territory west of the Mis- 
sissippi ; and after returning to Missouri the negro en- 
deavored to obtain his hberty by an appeal to the courts, 
on the ground that his residence in a free State had oper- 
ated to destroy his master's rights over him. In course of 
appeal the case reached the Supreme Court of the United 
States. The chief, if not the only, question at issue was 
a question of jurisdiction. Was Dred Scott a citizen 



198 Secession and Civil War. [§§97,98. 

within the meaning of the Constitution; had he had any 

rightful standing in the lower courts ? To this question 

- the court returned a decided negative. The 

Jurisdiction. , , ^ ,, , , . 

temporary residence of the negro s master m 
Illinois and Minnesota, in the course of his official duty 
and without any intention to change his domicile, could 
not affect the status of the slave, at any rate after his 
return to Missouri. He was not a citizen of Missouri 
in the constitutional sense, and could have therefore no 
standing in the federal courts. But, this question de- 
cided, the majority of the judges did not think it obiter 
dicens to go further, and argue to the merits of the case 
regarding the status of slaves and the authority of Con- 
gress over slavery in the Territories. They were of the 
opinion that, notwithstanding the fact that the Constitu- 
tion spoke of slaves as '■'■persons held to service and 
Status of labor," men of the African race, in view of 
the negro. the fact of their bondage from the first in 
this country, were not regarded as persons, but only as 
property, by the Constitution of the United States; that, 
as property, they were protected from hostile legislation 
on the part of Congress by the express guarantees of 
the Constitution itself; and that Congress could no more 
legislate this form of property out of the Territories than 
it could exclude property of any other kind, but must 
guarantee to every citizen the right to carry this, as he 
might carry all other forms of property, where he would, 
within the territory subject to Congress. The legislation, 
therefore, known as the Missouri compromise was, in 
their judgment, unconstitutional and void. 

The opinion of the court sustained the whole southern 
claim. Not even the exercise of squatter sovereignty 
Scope of the could have the countenance of law; Congress 
decision. must protect every citizen of the country in 
carrying with him into the Territories property of what- 



i857-] Dred Scott Decision. 199 

ever kind, until such time as the Territory in which he 
settled should become a State, and pass beyond the 
direct jurisdiction of the federal government. Those 
who were seeking to prevent the extension of slavery 
into the Territories were thus stigmatized as seeking an 
illegal object, and acting in despite of the Constitution. 

98. The Kansas Question again (1857-1858). 

For the Republicans the decision was like a blow in 
the face. And their uneasiness and alarm were the 
Buchanan's greater because the new administration 
policy. seemed wholly committed to the southern 

party. Mr. Buchanan had called into his cabinet both 
northern and southern men; the list was headed by 
Lewis Cass of Michigan as Secretary of State, a sturdy 
Democrat of the old Jacksonian type. But the Presi- 
dent was guided for the most part by the counsel of the 
southern members, — men like Howell Cobb of Georgia, 
and Jacob Thompson of Mississippi. It was natural 
that he should be. Only two northern States, Pennsyl- 
vania and New Jersey, had been carried for Buchanan in 
1856, and only two States of the Northwest, Indiana and 
Illinois. The chief strength of the Democrats was in 
the South; and apparently it was upon the South that 
they must depend in the immediate future. The course of 
the administration, as an inevitable consequence, was one 
of constant exasperation to its opponents, particularly in 
connection with the affairs of Kansas. 

The free settlers of Kansas gained control of the 
territorial legislature, as we have seen, in the October 
of this first year of Mr. Buchanan's term; but before 
Lecompton resigning its power, the expiring pro-slavery 
constitution, majority had called a convention, to meet at 
Lecompton in September, to frame a state constitution. 



200 Secession and Civil War, [§§ 98, 99. 

The convention met accordingly, and adopted (October 7) 
a constitution which provided for the establishment and 
perpetuation of slavery. The convention determined 
not to submit this constitution as a whole to the popular 
vote, but only the question of its adoption " with 
slavery " or " without slavery," — a process which would 
not touch any other feature of the instrument nor affect 
the various safeguards which it sought to throw around 
slave property so far as it already existed. The free 
settlers refrained from voting, and the constitution was, 
in December, adopted "with slavery" by a large major- 
ity. The new territorial legislature, with its free-state 
majority, directed the submission of the whole constitu- 
tion to the vote of the people; and on Jan. 4, 1858, 
it was defeated by more than ten thousand majority, 
the pro-slavery voters, in their turn, staying away from 
the polls. 

The whole influence of the administration was brought 
to bear upon Congress to secure the admission of Kan- 
Democratic sas to the Union under the Lecompton con- 
dissensions, stitution ; but although there were Democra- 
tic majorities in both Houses, the measure could not be 
gotten through the House of Representatives. The op- 
position in the Democratic ranks was led by Senator 
Douglas, who adhered so consistently to his principle of 
popular sovereignty that he would not consent to force 
any constitution upon the people of Kansas. Compro- 
mise was tried, but failed. Kansas was obliged to wait 
upon the fortunes of parties. While she waited, the 
free State of Minnesota entered the Union, May 11, 1858, 
under an enabling Act passed by the previous Congress 
in February, 1857. 



1858.] Lincoln-Douglas Debate. 201 

09. The Lincoln-Douglas Debate (1858). 

The elections of 1858 chowed a formidable gain in 
strength by the Republicans, and bore an ominous warn- 
Republican ing for the Democrats. Everywhere the Re- 
gains, publicans gained ground ; even Pennsylvania, 
the President's own State, went against the administra- 
tion by a heavy vote. The number of Republicans in the 
Senate was increased from twenty to twenty-five, from 
ninety-two to a hundred and nine in the House; and in 
the latter chamber they were to be able to play the lead- 
ing part, since there were still twenty-two Know Nothings 
in the House, and thirteen " Anti-Lecompton " Democrats, 
the followers of Senator Douglas. Douglas himself was 
returned with difficulty to his seat in the Senate, and his 
canvass for re-election had arrested the attention of the 
whole country. The Republicans of Illinois had formally 
Lincoln's announced that their candidate for the Senate 
attitude. would be Abraham Lincoln, a man whose ex- 
traordinary native sagacity, insight, and capacity for 
debate had slowly won for him great prominence in the 
State, first as a Whig, afterwards as an Anti-Nebraska 
man and Republican. Lincoln and Douglas "took the 
stump " together, and the great debates between them 
which ensued, both won for Lincoln a national reputation 
and defined the issues of the party struggle as perhaps 
nothing less dramatic could have defined them. In Lin- 
coln's mind those issues were clear cut enough. " A 
house divided against itself," he declared, " cannot stand. 
I believe this government cannot endure half slave and 
half free. I do not expect the house to fall, but I expect 
it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing 
Douglas's or ^ the other." He forced Douglas upon 
dilemma. ^^ dilemma created for him by the Dred Scott 
decision What became of the doctrine of popular sever 



202 Secession and Civil War. [§§ 99, 100. 

eignty if the people of the Territories could not interfere 
with slavery until they came to frame a state constitu- 
tion ? Slavery could not exist, replied Douglas, with- 
out local legislation to sustain it ; unfriendly legislation 
would hamper and kill it almost as effectually as positive 
prohibition. An inferior legislature certainly cannot do 
what it is not within the power of Congress to accom- 
plish, was Lincoln's rejoinder. The state elections went 
for the Democrats, and Mr. Douglas was returned to the 
Senate ; but Lincoln had made him an impossible presi- 
dential candidate for the southern Democrats in i860 by 
forcing him to deny to the South the full benefits of the 
Dred Scott decision. 

The disclosures of policy made by the Executive to 
Congress during the next winter still further intensified 
Territorial party issucs. Mr. Buchanan's message of 
expansion. December 6 urged territorial expansion in 
good set terms : the country ought by some means to 
obtain possession of Cuba ; ought to assume a protecto- 
rate over those pieces of the dissolving Mexican repubhc 
which lay nearest her own borders ; ought to make good 
her rights upon the Isthmus against Nicaragua and Costa 
Rica. The impression gained ground that the South was 
urging the President on towards great acquisitions of 
slave territory. Again and again, until the very eve of 
the assembling of the Democratic nominating convention 
in i860, did the President urge this extraordinary policy 
upon Congress, greatly deepening, the while, the alarm 
and repugnance of the North. 

100. John Brown's Raid (1859). 

The year 1859 witnessed a perilous incident in the 
struggle against slavery, which stirred the South with a 
profound agitation. In 1855 John Brown, a native of 
Connecticut, moved from Ohio into Kansas, accompanied 



1858, i859] yoh7i Bivwjz's Raid. 203 

by his four sons. Brown possessed a nature at once 
rugged and intense, acknowledging no authority but that of 
Brown in his own obstinate will, following no guidance 
Kansas. \^^i ti^a.t of his own conceptions of right, — con- 

ceptions fanatical almost to the point of madness. His 
only intention in entering Kansas was to throw himself 
and his sons into the struggle going forward there against 
slavery ; and he was quick to take a foremost part in the 
most lawless and bloody enterprises of his party, going 
even to the length of massacre and the forcible liberation 
of slaves. It was not long before he had earned outlawry 
and had had a price set upon his head by the govern- 
Harper's ment. In January, 1859, he left Kansas, and in 
Ferry. j^jy settled near Harper's Ferry, Virginia, witfi 

the mad purpose of effecting, if possible, a forcible libera- 
tion of the slaves of the South, by provoking a general 
insurrection. On the night of Sunday, October 17, at the 
head of less than twenty followers, he seized the United 
States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, and hastened to free as 
many negroes and arrest as many white men as possible 
before making good his retreat, with an augmented fol- 
lowing, as he hoped, to the mountains. Caught, before he 
could withdraw, by the arrival of a large force of militia, 
he was taken, with such of his little band as had survived 
the attempt to stand siege in the arsenal. A speedy trial 
followed, and the inevitable death penalty on Decem* 
ber 2. His plan had been one of the maddest folly, but 
his end was one of singular dignity. He endured trial 
and execution with manly, even with Christian, fortitude. 
The South was shaken by the profoundest emotion. A 
slave insurrection was the most hideous danger that 
Effect in southem homes had to fear. It meant mas- 
the South. sacre and arson, and for the women a fate 
worse than any form of death or desolation. Southern- 
ers did not discriminate carefully between the different 



204 Secession arid Civil War. [§§ loo, loi. 

classes of anti-slavery men in the North ; to the south- 
ern thought they were all practically Abohtionists, and 
Abolitionists had uttered hot words which could surely 
have no other purpose than to incite the slaves to insur- 
rection. It was found, upon investigation, that Brown 
had obtained arms and money in the North ; and al- 
though it was proved also that those who had aided him 
had no intimation of his designs against the South, but 
supposed that he was to use what they gave him in Kan- 
sas, the impression was deepened at the South that this 
worst form of violence had at any rate the virtual moral 
countenance of the northern opponents of slavery. It 
was not easy, after this, for the South to judge dispas- 
sionately any movement of politics. Already some 
southern men had made bold to demand that Congress, 
in obedience to the Dred Scott decision, should afford 
positive statutory protection to slavery wherever it might 
have entered the Territories ; there was even talk in some 
quarters of insisting upon a repeal of the laws forbidding 
the slave trade; and proposals of territorial expansion 
were becoming more and more explicit and persistent. 
The exasperation of the incident at Harper's Ferry only 
rendered the extreme men of the South the more deter- 
mined to achieve their purposes at every point. 

101. Presidential Campaign of 1860. 

When the new Congress assembled, in December, 

1859, disclosures came which brought the administration 

. . into painful discredit. A committee of the 

Investigation . , . . , , 

of the admin- Housc, Constituted to mvestigate the charge 
jstration. made by two members, that they had been 
offered bribes by the administration to vote for the ad- 
mission of Kansas with the Lecompton Constitution, 
brought to light many things which cast a grave suspicion 
of corruption upon those highest in authority, and hast' 



i859, i860.] Presidential Campaign, 205 

ened the already evident decline of confidence in the 
President and his counsellors. 

Meantime, the country turned to watch the party con- 
ventions. The Democratic convention met in Charles- 
ton, South Carolina, on April 23, i860. Its proceedings 
at once disclosed a fatal difficulty about the adoption 
Disintegra- of a platform. A strong southern minority 
m^n of the wished explicitly to insist upon carrying out 
party. to the full the doctrine of the Dred Scott de- 

cision ; but the majority would join them only in favoring 
the acquisition of Cuba " on terms honorable to ourselves 
and just to Spain," and in condemning the adoption by 
northern States of legislation hostile to the execution of 
the Fugitive Slave Law. When defeated on the resolu- 
tions, most of the southern members withdrew. Without 
them, the convention found it impossible to get together 
a two-thirds majority for any candidate for the presi- 
dential nomination. On the 3d of May, accordingly, it 
adjourned, to meet again in Baltimore on the i8th of 
June. Meantime the southern members who had with- 
drawn got together in another hall in Charleston, and 
adopted their own resolutions. The regular convention 
re-assembled in Baltimore on the appointed, day ; but, 
upon certain questions of re-organization being decided 
in favor of the friends of Mr. Douglas, most of the 
southern delegates who had remained with the conven- 
tion upon the occasion of the former schism, in their turn 
withdrew, carrying with them the chairman of the con- 
vention and several northern delegates. The rest of the 
body proceeded to the business of nomination, and named 
Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois for the presidency. The 
second group of seceders from the convention, joined by 
delegates who had been refused admission, and even 
by some of the delegates who had withdrawn and acted 
separately in Charleston, met in Baltimore on the 28th 



2o6 Secession and Civil War, [§ loi 

of June, adopted the resolutions that had been adopted 
by the minority in Charleston, and nominated John C. 
Breckinridge Breckinridge of Kentucky for the presidency, 
convention. A remnant of the minority convention in 
Charleston on the same day ratified these nominations 
in Richmond. 

Already, on the 9th of May, another convention had 

met and acted. This was the convention of a new party, 

the " Constitutional Union," made up for the 

Constitu- . , , • f 11 

tionai Union " most part of the morc conservative men of all 
P^^'^" parties, who were repelled alike by Republican 

and by Democratic extremes of policy. The Know 
Nothing party was dead, but this was its heir. It con- 
tained, besides, some men who would not have been Know 
Nothings. It adopted a very brief platform, recognizing 
"no political principle other than the Constitution of the 
country, the union of the States, and the enforcement of 
the laws," and nominated John Bell of Tennessee for the 
presidency. 

The Republican convention met in Chicago on May 
16, full of an invigorating confidence of success. The 
Republican platform adopted denounced threats of dis- 
convention. union, but warmly disavowed all sympathy 
with any form of interference with the domestic insti- 
tutions already established in any State. It demanded 
the immediate admission of Kansas as a free State, It 
repudiated the doctrine of the Dred Scott decision as 
a dangerous political heresy, claiming that the normal 
condition of all Territories of the United States was 
a condition of freedom, and that it was the plain duty 
of the government to maintain that condition by law. 
It favored a protective tariff, internal improvements, 
and a railway to the Pacific. William H. Seward of 
New York and Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, unquestionably 
the leading men of the party, were the most prominent 



i860.] Preside7itial Campaign. 207 

candidates for the presidential nomination; but they had 
made enemies in dangerous numbers. Mr. Seward, the 
Nomination rnore prominent and powerful of the two, was 
of Lincoln, regarded as a sort of philosophical radical, 
whom careful men might distrust as a practical guide. 
The party was, after all, a conglomerate party ; and it 
seemed best, under the circumstances, to take some less 
conspicuous man, and to take him from some wavering 
State. Although Mr. Seward led at first, therefore, in 
the voting for candidates, Abraham Lincoln of Illinois 
was nominated on the third ballot. Mr. Hannibal Ham- 
lin of Maine was nominated for the vice-presidency. 

The result of the campaign which ensued was hardly 
doubtful from the first. The presence of four candidates 
in the field, and the hopeless breach in the 
Democratic ranks, made it possible for the 
Republicans to win doubters over to themselves in every 
quarter. In only one northern State, New Jersey, were 
Democratic electors chosen, and even in that State four 
out of the seven electors chosen were Republicans. 
Douglas received only the nine electoral votes of Mis- 
souri and those three from New Jersey. Virginia, Ten- 
nessee, and Kentucky cast their votes for Bell. The 
rest of the southern States went for Breckinridge. The 
total reckoning showed one hundred and eighty electoral 
votes for Lincoln and Hamlin, one hundred and three 
for all the other candidates combined. The popular vote 
The popu- was not so decisive. For Lincoln and Hamlin 
larvote. jj- ^^g 1^866,452; for Douglas, 1,375,157, the 
Douglas ticket having polled heavy minorities in the 
States which had been carried for Lincoln ; for Breck- 
inridge, 847,953 ; for Bell, 590,631. The total opposition 
vote to the Republicans was thus 2,823,741, — a majority 
of almost a million, in a total vote of a little over four 
millions and a half. In the North and West alone the 



2o8 Secession and Civil War, [§§ loi, 102. 

total opposition vote was 1,288,611. In Oregon and 
California, whose electoral votes went to the Republi- 
cans, the aggregate popular opposition vote was almost 
twice the vote for Lincoln and Hamlin. In Illinois itself, 
Mr. Lincoln's own State, the opposition vote fell less 
than three thousand short of that polled by the Republi- 
cans. It was a narrow victory, of which it behooved the 
Republican leaders to make cautious use. 

102. Significance of the Result. 

The South had avowedly staked everything, even her 
allegiance to the Union, upon this election. The triumph 
Southern ap- of Mr. Liucolu was, in her eyes, nothing less 
prehension, than the establishment in power of a party 
bent upon the destruction of the southern system and 
the defeat of southern interests, even to the point of 
countenancing and assisting servile insurrection. In the 
metaphor of Senator Benjamin, the Republicans did not 
mean, indeed, to cut down the tree of slavery, but they 
meant to gird it about, and so cause it to die. It 
seemed evident to the southern men, too, that the North 
would not pause or hesitate because of constitutional 
guarantees. For twenty years northern States had been 
busy passing " personal liberty " laws, intended to bar 
the operation of the federal statutes concerning fugitive 
slaves, and to secure for all alleged fugitives legal priv- 
ileges which the federal statutes withheld. More than 
a score of States had passed laws with this object, and 
such acts were as plainly attempts to nullify the constitu- 
tional action of Congress as if they had spoken the lan- 
guage of the South Carolina ordinance of 1832. Southern 
Southern pride, too, was stung to the quick by the po- 
pnde. sition in which the South found itself. The 

agitation against slavery had spoken in every quarter the 
harshest moral censures of slavery and the slaveholders. 



i860.] Sigftificance of the Result, 209 

The whole course of the South had been described as one 
of systematic iniquity; southern society had been rep- 
resented as built upon a wilful sin ; the southern people 
had been held up to the world as those who deliberately 
despised the most righteous commands of religion. They 
knew that they did not deserve such reprobation. They 
knew that their lives were honorable, their relations with 
their slaves humane, their responsibility for the existence 
of slavery among them remote. National churches had 
already broken asunder because of this issue of morals. 
The Baptist Church had split into a northern and a 
southern branch as long ago as 1845 ; and a still earlier 
year, 1844, had seen the same line of separation run 
through the great Methodist body. 

The Republican party was made up of a score of 
elements, and the vast majority of its adherents were 
„ - almost as much repelled by the violent temper 

Temper of , ,. . . ^ 

the Repub- and disunionist sentiments of the Abolition- 
icans. jg^g ^g were the southern leaders themselves. 

The abolitionist movement had had an exceedingly 
powerful and a steadily increasing influence in creating 
a strong feeling of antagonism towards slavery, but there 
was hardly more of an active abolitionist party in i860 
than there had been in 1840. The Republicans wished, 
and meant, to check the extension of slavery; but no one 
of influence in their counsels dreamed of interfering with 
its existence in the States. They explicitly acknowl- 
edged that its existence there was perfectly constitu- 
tional. But the South made no such distinctions. It 
knew only that the party which was hotly intolerant of 
the whole body of southern institutions and interests 
had triumphed in the elections and was about to take 
possession of the government, and that it was morally 
impossible to preserve the Union any longer. " If you 
who represent the stronger portion," Calhoun had said 

14 



2IO Secession and Civil War, [§§102,103. 

in 1850, in words which perfectly convey this feeling in 
their quiet cadences, "cannot agree to settle the great 
questions at issue on the broad principle of justice and 
duty, say so; and let the States we both represent agree 
to separate and depart in peace." 

103. Secession (1860-1861). 

South Carolina, alone among the States, still chose her 
presidential electors, not by popular vote, but through 
South her legislature. After having chosen Breck- 

Carohna. inridge electors, Nov. 6, i860, her legislature 
remained in session to learn the result of the election. 
The governor of the State had consulted other southern 
governors upon the course to be taken in the event of a 
Republican victory, and had received answers which en- 
couraged South Carolina to expect support, should she 
determine to secede. When news came that Lincoln was 
elected, therefore, the South Carolina legislature called 
a state convention, made provision for the purchase of 
arms, and adjourned. In Charleston, on the 20th of De- 
cember, the convention which it had called passed an 
ordinance which repealed the action taken in state con-> 
vention on the 23d May, 1788, whereby the Constitution 
of the United States had been ratified, together with all 
subsequent Acts of Assembly ratifying amendments to 
that Constitution, and formally pronounced the dissolution 
of the union "subsisting between South Carolina and other 
States, under the name of the United States of America." 
It also made what provision was necessary for the gov- 
ernment of the State as a separate sovereignty, and for 
such exigencies of defence as might arise in case of war. 
By the ist of February, 1861, Georgia and four of the 
Gulf States — Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana — 
had followed South Carolina and seceded from the Unionj 
and Texas was on the point of joining them. 



i860, i86i.] Secession, 211 

Delegates, appointed by the several conventions in the 
seceding States, met in Montgomery, Alabama, on the 
Montgomery 4th o£ February, 1861, framed a provisional 
Convention, constitution and government for the " Con- 
federate States of America," and chose Jefferson Davis 
of Mississippi provisional President, Alexander H, Ste- 
phens of Georgia provisional Vice-President. In March 
a permanent constitution was adopted, to take effect the 
next year. 

The legal theory upon which this startling and extra- 
ordinary series of steps was taken was one which would 
Legal theory hardly have been questioned in the early 
of secession, yg^rs of the government, whatever resistance 
might then have been offered to its practical execution. 
It was for long found difficult to deny that a State could 
withdraw from the federal arrangement, as she might 
have declined to enter it. But constitutions are not mere 
legal documents : they are the skeleton frame of a living 
organism; and in this case the course of events had 
nationalized the government once deemed confederate. 
Twenty States had been added to the original thirteen 
since the formation of the government, and almost all 
of these were actual creations of the federal government, 
first as Territories, then as States. Their populations had 
no corporate individuality such as had been 
possessed by the people of each of the col- 
onies. They came from all parts of the Union, and had 
formed communities which were arbitrary geographical 
units rather than natural political units. Not only that, 
but north of the Missouri compromise line the popula- 
tion of these new States had been swelled by immigra- 
tion from abroad; and there had played upon the whole 
northern and northwestern section those great forces of 
material development which made steadily for the unifi- 
cation of interests and purposes. The "West" was the 



2 1 2 Secession and Civil War. [§§ 103, 104. 

great make-weight. It was the region into which the 
whole national force had been projected, stretched out, 
and energized, — a region, not a section; divided into 
States by reason of a form of government, but homo- 
geneous, and proceeding forth from the Union. 

These are not lawyer's facts : they are historian's facts. 
There had been nothing but a dim realization of them 
until the war came and awoke the national spirit into 
full consciousness. They have no bearing upon the legal 
e ,. ,. intent of the Constitution as a document, to 

hectionali- , ' 

zation of be interpreted by the intention of its framers; 

but they have everything to do with the Con- 
stitution as a vehicle of hfe. The South had not changed 
her ideas from the first, because she had not changed her 
condition. She had not experienced, except in a very 
slight degree, the economic forces which had created the 
great Northwest and nationalized the rest of the coun- 
try; for they had been shut out from her life by slavery. 
The South withdrew from the Union because, she said, 
power had been given to a geographical, a sectional, 
party, ruthlessly hostile to her interests ; but Dr. von 
Hoist is certainly right when he says : " The Union was 
not broken up because sectional parties had been formed, 
but sectional parties were formed because the Union had 
actually become sectionalized." There had been nothing 
active on the part of the South in this process. She had 
stood still while the rest of the country had undergone 
profound changes; and, standing still, she retained the 
old principles which had once been universal. Both she 
and her principles, it turned out, had been caught at 
last in the great national drift, and were to be over- 
whelmed. Her slender economic resources were no 
match for the mighty strength of the nation with which 
she had fallen out of sympathy. 



i86i.] A Period of Hesitation, 213 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE CIVHi ^WAR (1861-1865). 

104. A Period of Hesitation (1861). 

During the early months of 1861 the whole posture of 
affairs was most extraordinary. Nowhere was there de- 
Southern cided purpose or action except in the South. 
activity. The federal authorities seemed paralyzed. On 

all hands southern officers were withdrawing from the 
army, as their States seceded ; in Hke rapid succession 
the representatives of the seceding States were withdraw- 
ing from the Senate and House of Representatives. The 
southern States, as they left the Union, took possession 
of the federal arsenals, custom houses, and post-offices 
within their jurisdiction. Presently only Fortress Mon- 
roe in Chesapeake Bay, Fort Sumter in Charleston har- 
bor, Fort Pickens at Pensacola, and the fortifications 
near Key West remained in federal possession. Many 
civil officials of the federal government resigned their 
commissions. Commissioners from South CaroHna had 
appeared in Washington before the year opened, to ar- 
range for a division of the national debt and a formal 
transfer of the national property lying within the State. 
Military preparations were made everywhere in the South ; 
and some northern governors ordered the purchase of 
arms and made ready to mobilize the militia of their 
States. But the federal authorities did nothing. Al- 
most everywhere in the North and West the people were 
strangely lethargic, singularly disposed to wait and see 
the trouble blow over. 



214 Secession and Civil War, [§104. 

Buchanan's counsels had hitherto been guided by 
southern influences ; and when this crisis came, although 
Buchanan's the southern men withdrew from his cabinet, 
course. qj. were displaced, to make room for firmer 

adherents of the Union, he seemed incapable of deciding 
upon any course of action against the South. Mr. 
Buchanan believed and declared that secession was ille- 
gal ; but he agreed with his Attorney General that there 
was no constitutional means or warrant for coercing a' 
State to do her duty under the law. Such, indeed, for 
the time, seemed to be the general opinion of the coun- 
try. Congress was hardly more capable of judgment or 
action than the Executive. On January 29, 1861, after 
the withdrawal of the southern members had given the 
Republicans a majority in the Senate, it passed the bill 
which was to admit Kansas to the Union under her latest 
free constitution ; the Territories of Nevada, Colorado, 
and Dakota were organized, without mention of slavery; 
and a new Tariff Act, which had passed the House the 
previous winter, passed the Senate, in aid of the now 
Congression- embarrassed finances of the government. But 
ai paralysis. ^^ j^^ subject of most pressing exigency every 
proposal failed. Compromise measures without num- 
ber were brought forward, but nothing was ■ agreed upon. 
A Peace Congress, made up of delegates from all but 
the seceding States, met, at the suggestion of Virginia, 
and proposed acts of accommodation ; a senatorial 
committee joined it in advocating the extension of the 
Missouri compromise line to the Pacific, the positive es- 
tablishment of slavery by Congress to the south of that 
line, and compensation from the federal Treasury for 
fugitive slaves rescued after arrest. Even Mr. Seward, 
the Republican leader in Congress, was willing to con- 
cede some of the chief points of Republican policy with 
regard to slavery in the Territories for the sake of con- 



i86i.] Period of Hesitation. 215 

ciliation. But nothing was done ; everything was left to 
the next administration. 

The situation, singular and perilous as it seemed, was 

really due to causes which were, in the long view, sources 

of strength. The people of the country were 

Conservative ,,ii .i-i-ir • i,. 

temper of doubtless bewildered for a time by being 
the people, brought SO unexpectedly into the presence of 
so great a crisis ; but this trying pause before action 
was due very much more to their conservative temper 
and deep-rooted legal habit. Even after the crisis had 
been transformed into a civil war, and the struggle had 
actually begun for the preservation of the Union, every 
step taken which strained the laws caused a greater or 
less reaction in the popular mind against the party in 
power. Policy had to carry the people with it ; had to 
await the awakening of the national idea into full con- 
sciousness; and this first pause of doubt and reflection 
did but render the ultimate outcome the more certain. 

The feeling of experiment and uncertainty was not 
confined to the North. At first neither side expected 
First object "^"^ actual Conflict of arms, — perhaps neither 
of secession, gj^jg expected a permanent dissolution of the 
Union. There was a strong party of opposition to seces- 
sion in the South, notably in Georgia, where even Mr. 
Stephens, now Vice-President of the Confederacy, had 
opposed it. Secession had been in some sense a move- 
ment of political leaders rather than of the people. The 
object was to make terms with the North about slavery, 
and they thought that probably better terms could be 
made out of the Union than in it. The States which 
followed South Carolina felt bound to support their sister 
State in demands with which they sympathized. Border 
States like North Carolina and Virginia and Tennessee 
held off only until coercion should be attempted. Com- 
promise was hoped for, even confidently expected. Some 



2i6 Secession and Civil War. [§§104,105. 

dreamed, in the North as well as in the South, that the 
dissolution would be final and peaceful ! Action was 
hurried forward too rapidly to be based upon careful cal- 
culation or any wise forecast. 



105. President Lincoln (1861). 

The successor to whom President Buchanan very will- 
ingly resigned the responsibility of guiding affairs at this 
Lincoln's Critical juncture was one of the most singular 
character. ^^^j admirable figures in the history of modern 
times. Abraham Lincoln came of the most unpromising 
stock on the continent, the "poor white trash" of the 
South. His shiftless father had moved from place to 
place in the western country, failing where everybody 
else was succeeding in making a living; and the boy had 
spent the most susceptible years of his life under no dis- 
cipline but that of degrading poverty. And yet a sin^ 
gular genius for getting and using knowledge manifested 
itself in him from the first, and was the more remarkable 
because free from morbid quality, and slow, patient, and 
equable in its development. He was altogether like the 
rough frontiersmen with whom he lived, in his coarse, 
neglected dress, his broad and boisterous humor, his care- 
less, unstrenuous ways of life ; but he was vastly above 
them in intellectual and moral stature. He gained an 
easy mastery over them, too, by cultivating, as he did, the 
directer and more potent forms of speech. And his su- 
premacy was the more assured because it was a moral as 
well as an intellectual supremacy. To everybody who 
knew him he was " Honest Abe." When at length he 
undertook to meet Douglas in public debate (§ 99), he 
had come into the full maturity of his splendid power to 
understand and persuade. Having developed among the 
people, slowly, as if in their company, by mastering what 



i86i.] President Lincoln. 217 

they but partially comprehended, penetrated the while by 
their sentiments and aspirations, he came into the leader- 
ship of his party with an aptitude and equipment for 
affairs which no other man could rival. 

His task as President was " more difficult than that of 
Washington himself had been," as he had said to his 
neighbors, with solemn solicitude for the 
future. There was a sentiment to create and 
a party to compact ; and these things were to be done 
by a man comparatively unknown as yet. He meant to 
respect the Constitution in all things. It was in the oath 
that he took as President, he said, that he would to the 
best of his ability preserve, protect, and defend the Con- 
stitution; and he did not feel that he might "take an oath 
to get power, and break the oath in using that power." 
Neither did he feel, however, that he could be said even 
to have tried to preserve the Constitution if, "to save 
slavery or any minor matter," he should "permit the 
wreck of government, country, and Constitution all to- 
gether." He sought to follow a course of policy in which 
firmness and conciliation should be equally prominent, 
and in which he could carry the plain people of the 
country with him. 

He put both Mr. Seward and Mr. Chase into his cab- 
inet, because they were recognized as the most conspicu- 
ous and representative men of his party ; but 
he associated with them others less conspic- 
uous, and also less radical, chosen from the other groups 
which had combined to make up the Republican strength. 
Then he addressed himself to the slowest and most cau- 
tious policy that the rapid movement of critical events 
would allow. When Mr. Seward proposed, with amazing 
weakness and fatuity, that the slavery question be elim- 
inated in all dealings with the South, and the nation at 
once aroused and united by a vigorous and aggressive 



2i8 Secession and Civil War. [§§ 105-107. 

foreign policy, Lincoln's reproof showed him a master 
both in commanding others and in controlling himself. 
When the ardent anti-slavery faction would have pushed 
him to the other extreme, they too were baffled by his 
prudent purpose and quiet reserve of strength. Events 
went swiftly enough of themselves. He was not afraid 
to take the initiative, but he would not take it rashly or 
too soon. He governed and succeeded by sympathy. 
He knew the mettle and temper of the people who had 
put him in charge of the government. 



106. Opening of Hostilities (1861). 

During the very month of his inauguration commis- 
sioners arrived from the confederate States. They were 
Southern refused official recognition ; but Mr. Seward, 
commission, -who believed himself to be the real head of 
the administration, kept them waiting a long time for his 
decision, unofficially holding out hopes of concession, 
the while, through Justice Campbell, of the Supreme 
Court, who wished, if possible, to mediate in the interest 
of peace. On April 8, while they waited, formal notice was 
sent from the federal authorities to Governor Pickens of 
South Carolina that the federal garrison in Fort Sumter, 
which the southern authorities had summoned to sur- 
render, would be succored and provisioned. 
April 12, the confederate batteries opened fire 
upon that fort, and on the 14th the little garrison was 
forced to surrender. The next day, the 15th, the Presi- 
dent, by proclamation, called for seventy-five thousand 
volunteers. The northern States promptly, even eagerly, 
responded. On the 19th of April a regiment of Mas- 
sachusetts volunteers was attacked by a mob in the 
streets of Baltimore as it passed through on its way to 
Washington. Four of the southern border States, rather 



i86i.] Opening of Hostilities. 219 

than obey the call for volunteers and acquiesce in the use 

of coercive force, withdrew from the Union and joined 

^ the southern Confederacy : Arkansas on May 

^ccGssion 01 

four more 6, North Carolina on May 20, Virginia on 
States. jyj^y 2^, and Tennessee on June 18. They 

had held off from the original movement of secession, 
but they were hotly opposed to the coercion of a State 
by the federal power, and had already formed " military 
leagues "with the seceding States, by which their terri- 
tories were opened to the confederate armies. 

The confederate capital was moved from Montgomery 
to Richmond ; President Davis also called for volunteers, 
Confederacy ^.nd his Call was obeyed as eagerly as Presi- 
aroused. ^QxA Lincoln's had been in the North. Regi- 
ments went blithely forth, oftentimes with gay pomp and 
laughter, from the southern towns, as if to holiday parade, 
little dreaming how awful a struggle was about to begin. 
Whatever doubts may have been entertained among the 
southern people about the wisdom or the policy of seces- 
sion were dispelled upon the instant by threat of co- 
ercive force. It then seemed to them that they were 
asserting rights of self-government as plain and as sacred 
as any that lay at the heart of the history of English 
liberty. In the North, too, there were scruples about 
coercion, and Mr. Lincoln had to be the more careful 
because of them. But when Sumter was fired on, and 
the war begun, these scruples too were dispelled. Both 
sides were aroused. 

107. The "War Policy of Congress (1861-1862). 

Having called for and obtained the military support 
demanded by the immediate exigency, Mr. Lincoln sum- 
moned Congress to convene in special session 
on July 4. A colossal task confronted it 
The advantage of first preparation was with the South 



220 Secession and Civil War. [§§ 107, 108. 

What with the resignations and surrenders which followed 
the first actions of the seceding States, the army of the 
United States had gone almost to pieces. The treasury 
was practically empty. Even the civil service needed to 
be reconstructed, because of the number of southern men 
who had withdrawn from it. More than a year was to 
elapse before the overwhelming material power 
rgamza ion. ^^ ^^ North could be brought to bear upon 
the concentrated forces of the South. Congress devoted 
itself very heartily to the financial and military measures 
rendered necessary by the situation. It directed a block- 
ade of the Southern ports ; it authorized a loan and voted 
large appropriations, increasing the tariff duties, August 
5, to produce the necessary revenue ; it provided for the 
calling out of five hundred thousand volunteers ; passed 
Acts defining and punishing conspiracy against the gov- 
ernment; and provided for the confiscation of all property 
employed against the United States. During its regular 
winter session it resumed the same policy of strengthen- 
ing both the laws and the resources of the government 
against hostile attack. It then took the first steps of that 
Financial financial policy which was unflinchingly car- 
measures. j-jg(j out until the close of the war: industries 
were to be stimulated to the utmost possible extent by 
protective duties, and then used by direct taxation for 
the support of the war. By the middle of the summer 
of 1862 this system of policy was virtually complete. In 
February a great issue of irredeemable paper money was 
voted, and the paper given full legal tender quality ; in 
July a Tariff Act was passed which very greatly increased 
the duties on imports, and an internal revenue law adopted 
which, besides imposing specific taxes on the production 
of iron, steel, paper, coal oil, leather, etc., and a general 
ad valorem tax on other manufactures, required licenses 
for many callings, establi.shed a general income tax, and 



1861-1862.] War Policy of Congress. 221 

mulcted railway, steam-boat, and express companies in 
taxes on their gross receipts. The same month saw the 
charter of the Union Pacific Railway pass Congress, 
with huge grants of land and money from the federal 
government. Public lands were granted also to the 
various States in aid of the establishment of agricultural 
colleges ; and a " Homestead Bill " was adopted, which 
offered portions of the public domain to heads of families 
at a nominal fee. Wealth and taxes were to be made 
to grow together, the expansion of population and in- 
dustry and the successful prosecution of the war. 

108. Manassas and the "Trent" Afiair (1861). 

Meantime it was becoming evident that the struggle 
was to be both fierce and prolonged, taxing to the utmost 
. even the superb resources of the North, whose ports were 
open, and whose material power had chance of augmen- 
tation even in the midst of war itself. The volunteers at 
first called out had been enlisted for only three months' 
service ; it was expected that something would 
anassas. -^^ done at once which should be decisive of 
the sectional issue. Towards the end of July, 1861, Gen- 
eral McDowell moved with the federal forces upon Rich- 
mond, the confederate capital, and on the 21st met the 
confederate forces at Manassas, under Generals Joseph 
E. Johnston and Beauregard. A stubborn and san- 
guinary battle ensued, which resulted in the utter rout of 
McDowell, whose troops fled back to Washington in 
hopeless confusion. Already there had been several en- 
gagements upon a small scale in western Virginia, where 
the sympathy of the people was with the Union. These 
had resulted in giving to federal troops under General 
McClellan control of the upper sources of both the Poto- 
mac and the Ohio rivers. Similar side campaigns during 
the autumn and winter secured also for the federal power 



222 Secession and Civil War. [§§ io8, 109. 

the greater part of Missouri and Kentucky, and fixed 
sharply enough the geographical area of secession, 

A significant international incident called attention 
in the autumn to the possible part that foreign govern- 
„ . ments might play in the conflict as it grew 

Foreign re- o r j o 

lationsofthe more scrious. The confederate government 
eracy. ^^^ from the first hoped for and even ex- 
pected foreign recognition and assistance. The southern 
States were the great cotton field of the world, and there 
were hundreds of factories in England which must stand 
idle, thousands of families who must starve, if the south- 
ern ports should be effectually closed against the expor- 
tation of the great staple. European powers, it was 
thought, would not be loath to see the great republic in 
America lose some of its formidable strength by divi- 
sion ; and it was soon known that in England the most 
influential classes sympathized with the aims of the 
South. J. M. Mason and John Slidell, commissioners 
from the Confederate States to England and France 
respectively, ran the federal blockade at Charleston and 
embarked at Havana on the English steamer 
1 • (( Trent " for England. On November 8 the 
steamer was overhauled by a United States man-of-war, 
and the commissioners were taken from her and carried 
prisoners to Fort Warren, in Boston harbor. At once Eng- 
land demanded their surrender, and an apology from the 
United States for so gross a breach of international right, 
accompanying her demand with open preparations for 
war. The international rights for which she contended 
were such as the United States herself had always insist- 
ed upon, and the commissioners were released; but the 
"' Trent ' affair " made a very painful impression upon 
public opinion in both countries, — an impression of active 
hostility and bitterness of feehng which was slow to 
wear off. At the very beginning of the struggle, upon 



i86i, i862.] The '^ Trent'' Affair. 223 

receipt of the news of President Lincoln's proclamation 
declaring the southern ports blockaded, and of Presi- 
dent Davis's offer to provide vessels with letters of 
marque and reprisal against the commerce of the United 
States, both England and France had issued proclama- 
tions of neutrality which gave to the Confederate States 
international standing as belligerents. Apparently for- 
eign governments were waiting only for some pronounced 
success of the southern armies to recognize the indepen- 
dence of the Confederacy. 

109. Military Operations of 1862. 

Early in 1862 the area and plan of the war began to 
be defined. On the one hand, the long sectional frontier 
Theatre was broken by the movement of federal 

of war. armies down the valley of the Mississippi. 

On the other hand, the fighting grew thick and fast in 
Virginia and Maryland, in the region lying round about 
and between the two capitals, Richmond and Wash- 
ington. In the West the federal armies were almost 
uniformly successful; in the East almost uniformly un- 
successful. On the 6th of March, 1862, a severe en- 
gagement at Pea Ridge, in northwestern Arkansas, had 
given to the federal forces in that region the decisive 
advantage which finally secured to them the control 
of Missouri. A month earlier an actual invasion of the 
Western seccding States had been begun. A land 
campaign, force under Ulysses S. Grant moved up the 
Tennessee River, in co-operation with a fleet of gun- 
boats under Commodore Foote, and on February 6 took 
Fort Henry. Immediately crossing to the Cumberland, 
Grant captured Fort Donelson on that river on the i6th. 
A federal force under General Pope, also supported by 
gunboats, then, with the greatest difficulty, cleared the 
Mississippi of the confederate blockades at New Madrid 



224 Secesstojt and Civil War. [§ 109. 

and Island Number Ten. Pushing forward, meanwhile, 
the plan of securing the Mississippi valley and opening 
the river, Grant advanced up the Tennessee, seeking to 
reach Corinth, a railway centre of northern Mississippi. 
On Sunday morning, April 6, he was suddenly checked 
by the overwhelming onset of a confederate force com- 
manded by General Albert Sidney Johnston. The day's 
fighting drove Grant back to Pittsburg Landing. But 
federal reinforcements arrived under Buell; Johnston 
had been mortally wounded ; and on Monday the con- 
federates, under Beauregard, were forced to retire. 
Grant followed, and took Corinth, after a siege, on the 
^ 30th of May. The Mississippi was open as 

Mississippi far as Vicksburg, It had been opened below 
campaign. Vicksburg, also, by the surrender of New Or- 
leans. On the 1 8th of April Commodore Farragut had 
begun the bombardment of the forts below New Or- 
leans ; unable to take them at once, he had daringly run 
his ships past them on the 24th, and, with Butler's assist- 
ance, forced their surrender. On May ist Butler entered 
the city, unopposed. Early in June Memphis was taken, 
after desperate fighting, by the river forces operating above. 
In the East the federal forces were suffering a series 
of defeats. General Joseph E. Johnston, the confederate 
Peninsula Commander, had not followed up his signal 
campaign. victory over McDowell at Manassas. The 
war was then young, and the troops on both sides were 
raw and inexperienced. A period of further preparation 
followed. McDowell was superseded by McClellan, who 
was fresh from his successes in western Virginia; and 
McClellan spent the winter organizing and disciphning his 
forces, the " Army of the Potomac." When he took the 
field in the spring of 1862, he chose the old revolutionary 
fighting ground. Transporting his army by water to 
Fortress Monroe, he moved upon Richmond by the 



i862.] . Military Operations, 225 

peninsula that lies between the York and James rivers. 
A month was spent in the siege of Yorktown, which was 
evacuated on the 4th of May. Following his retreating 
opponents, McClellan again attacked them at Williams- 
burg, but did not prevent their crossing the Chicka- 
hominy. Johnston, in his turn, threw himself upon a 
portion of McClellan's army at Fair Oaks, before the 
rest of it had crossed this stream, and the federal forces 
were with difficulty saved from rout, after two days' fight- 
ing. Johnston was wounded in the conflict, and General 
Robert E. Lee succeeded him in the command. McClel- 
lan had expected to be joined by reinforcements under 
McDowell; but the brilliant manoeuvres of another con- 
federate commander had changed the plans of the 
authorities at Washington. This was Thomas J. Jack- 
son, who had already won the sobriquet " Stonewall " by 
his steadfast gallantry in making stand against the 
charges of the enemy in the first battle of Manassas. 
By a series of sudden marches and surprises charac- 
teristic of his genius, he had cleared the Shenandoah 
valley of federal troops, and, seeming to threaten Wash- 
ington, had kept McDowell there to defend the seat of 
government. Then he as suddenly turned about and 
carried his forces down by rail to assist Lee against 
McClellan. Together Lee and Jackson forced McClellan 
back to the James River, hammering at him irresistibly 
for seven days. 

McClellan was practically deprived of command by 
the transference of most of his troops to General Pope. 
But Pope fared even worse than McClellan. 
Eastern ^y a forced march through the mountains, 

campaign Jacksou turned his flank and defeated Gen- 
°^'^^''' eral Banks, in command of the western end 

of his line, at Cedar Mountain, August 9. August 

15 



226 Secession and Civil War. [§§ 109-111. 

29 Pope's forces were attacked at Groveton and on the 
30th routed at Manassas by Lee and Jackson. After 
sending out a force which captured Harper's Ferry, with 
its arsenal and supplies and eleven thousand federal 
troops, Lee then crossed the upper Potomac with his main 
body, entered Maryland, and fronted the federal army 
again, now once more under McClellan's command, at 
Antietam Creek. Here, on September 17, a battle was 
fought, so undecisive of victory that Lee recrossed the 
Potomac and retired towards his base of operations. 
Still experimenting with commanders, the federal author- 
ities put General Burnside at the head of the unhappy 
Army of the Potomac. December 13, Burnside threw him- 
self upon the confederate forces occupying Fredericks- 
burg heights, and was repulsed with great loss. Then 
there followed a pause until the spring. 



110. The Emancipation Proclamation (1863). 

For a year and a half now Lincoln had maintained, 

against all radical suggestions, the conservative policy 

with which he had set out. He knew that 

Circumstances. ^, r ^ .' c r,i xt. 

the nghtmg force of the Union must come, 
not from the leaders of parties, who were thinking fast 
in these stirring times, but from the mass of unknown 
men who were thinking more slowly and upon a narrower 
scale. The rank and file of the nation, when the struggle 
began, was opposed to an abolition war. Had the war 
been short and immediately decisive for the Union, the 
federal power would not have touched slavery in the States. 
But it was not short. It was so long and so stubborn as 
to provoke the sternest resolutions and test to the utmost 
the strength and persistence of the purposes that sus- 
tained it. And as its strain continued, thought changed 
and purpose expanded. At first Mr. Lincoln had promptly 



i862, 1863.] Emancipation Proclamation. 227 

checked all attempts to set free the negroes in the terri- 
tory overrun by the federal armies. But by September, 
Preliminary 1 862, he had made up his mind that it would 
proclamation, stimulate the forces of the North if the war 
were made a war against slavery, as well as a war for the 
Union ; and that it would at the same time put the Soutli 
in the wrong before the opinion of the world, and imper- 
atively prevent that foreign recognition of the southern 
Confederacy which he dreaded. He waited only for 
some victory in the field to furnish a dignified oppor- 
tunity for the step he contemplated. Antietam served 
his purpose sufficiently well; and on the 22d of Sep- 
tember he issued a proclamation which gave formal notice 
that unless the southern States yielded allegiance to the 
Union within a hundred days thereafter, he should de- 
clare the slaves within their limits free. On 
mancipaion. ^j^^ ist of Januar}', 1863, accordingly, he put 
forth a formal proclamation of emancipation. The act 
carried of course no other authority than that which the 
President exercised as commander-in-chief of the mili- 
tary forces of the government. As an act of military 
power he could set free the negroes within territory 
occupied by the federal armies, but his proclamation 
could not abolish a legal institution. It served its pur- 
pose, nevertheless, as an announcement of policy. 

111. Kadical Measures (1862-1863). 

Meantime Congress also was growing more radical in 
policy. There had been a slight reaction in the country 
against the President's abolition proclamation 
of September, and there v/as a good deal of 
dissatisfaction with the way in which the war had hither- 
to been conducted. The autumn elections of 1862 had 



22 8 Secession and Civil War, [§iii. 

reduced the Republican majority somewhat in the House 
of the Thirty-eighth Congress, which was to meet in De- 
cember, 1863. But the existing Hous^ was not daunted, 
and the party policy was pushed forward. December 
31, 1862, a practically revolutionary step was 
of West taken by admitting forty of the western 

Virginia. counties of Virginia to the Union as a sep- 
arate State, under the name of West Virginia. These 
counties had not shared the secession sentiment of the 
rest of the State, and when they came to make their 
choice between adhering to the State or adhering to the 
Union, had chosen the latter alternative and set up a 
revolutionary state government of their own. After Vir- 
ginia seceded, Congress adopted the fiction which the 
western Virginians had pressed for acceptance, that this 
revolutionary government of the western counties was 
the only legitimate government of Virginia; assumed the 
consent of that government to a division of the State to 
be a sufficient satisfaction of the provisions of the Con- 
stitution ; and erected the State of West Virginia. 

By an Act approved March 3, 1863, the President was 
authorized to suspend the operation of the writ of habeas 
Habeas corpus in cases of persons suspected of dis- 

corpus. affection towards the Union, as he had already 

been doing by declaring martial law in district after 
district ever since his first call for volunteers in April, 
1 861. The same day a stringent Draft Act 
became law, which provided for conscription 
by lot. The execution of this law caused intense excite- 
ment in some of the eastern States, and even provoked 
resistance. In some cases the officers in charge of the 
arrangements for the conscription acted in a grossly par- 
tisan manner, levying most heavily upon Democratic 
counties and districts. The most formidable outbreak 
against the execution of the Act took place in New York 



i862, 1863.] Radical Measures. 229 

city, where there were terrible " draft riots," during which 
the city was for four days, July 13-16, 1863, practically 
at the mercy of mobs. But inequalities of administra- 
tion were corrected, and the provisions of the Act every- 
where carried out. 

Such legislation was thought to be necessary by reason 
of the growing magnitude of the war. Both fleets and 

armies had to be created on the grand scale. 

A blockade of the southern ports had been 
proclaimed by President Lincoln on the 19th of April, 
1861 ; but the southern coast stretched three thousand 
miles long ; there were but forty-two vessels in commis- 
sion ; and the navy which was to make the blockade effec- 
tive had to be created. The operations of the blockading 
squadrons were somewhat facilitated by the capture of 
Fort Hatteras, North Carolina, so early as August 29, 
1 861, and of Port Royal, South Carolina, November 7 
of the same year ; and the building and equipment of war 
ships of every pattern, old and new, was pushed forward 
with extraordinary rapidity ; for the blockade was deemed 
as necessary as it proved difficult. Until the southern 
ports should be closed, southern cotton could be sent 
abroad, and arms and military supplies be brought back 
in exchange. It was expedient that the South should be 
shut in as speedily as possible to the rapid consumption 
of its own diminishing resources. Early in 1862 the con- 
Hampton federates had nearly swept Hampton Roads 
Roads. Qf its federal squadron by the onset of the 

armored ram "Virginia," improvised out of the frigate 
" Merrimac ; " but on March 9 the terrible successes of 
the " Virginia " were cut short by the arrival of Ericsson's 
turreted " Monitor," and it was evident to the world that 

a revolution had been effected in naval warfare. 

nva eers. Confederate privateers, and cruisers fitted 

out in foreign ports, went everywhere capturing United 



230 Secession and Civil War. [§§111,112. 

States merchantmen, for a time almost sweeping the 
seas of all commerce under the federal flag. But the 
privateers were one after another taken, and more and 
more effectually the blockade was drawn about the 
southern harbors. The southern wealth of cotton was 
made useless. 

112. Military Operations of 1863. 

In the spring of 1863 military operations began again 
upon the fields of the previous year. After Fredericks- 
Virginia t)urg, General Hooker had taken Burnside's 
campaign. place in Command of the Army of the Poto- 
mac. Attempting a movement upon Richmond, Hooker 
met the forces of Lee and Jackson at Chancellorsville, on 
the second and third days of May, and was disastrously 
defeated. The confederates, however, suffered the irrep- 
arable loss of " Stonewall " Jackson, killed, by tragical 
mistake, by pickets of his own force. Following up his 
advantage, Lee again ventured upon a forward movement 
and invaded Pennsylvania. Here, at Gettys- 
burg, he met General Meade, and was repulsed 
with heavy losses. The federal troops were strongly 
posted and intrenched; for three days, — the first three of 
July, — Lee's army beat upon them, and the second day 
saw their lines partly driven in, their position partly taken. 
But on the third day the lost ground was recovered, and 
Lee withdrew, his army almost decimated. 

Almost at the same time Vicksburg, on the Pvlississippi, 
fell before Grant's persistent attack. The defence of 
The Mississip- Vicksburg had been stubborn, prolonged, 
pi reopened, heroic, and almost successful. Plan after 
plan of attack had been tried by General Grant, and 
had failed. Finally, occupymg the country back of the 
stronghold, and taking Jackson, the capital of the State, 
he succeeded in shutting up the confederate forces, under 



1863.] Military Operations. 231 

General Pemberton, in the fortress. His assaults upon 
its works being always repulsed, he sat down to a regular 
siege, and in that way forced the garrison to surrender 
to him, half starved, on the 4th of July. July 9, Port 
Hudson, below, the only remaining confederate strong- 
hold on the river, yielded to General Banks and tlie 
necessities of the situation, and the Mississippi was com- 
manded throughout its entire length by the federal power: 
Louisiana and Texas were cut off from the rest of the 
Confederacy. 

Presently the Union armies were pushed forward di- 
rectly towards the heart of the Confederacy. After the 
evacuation of Corinth, Mississippi, by General 
movement in- Beauregard in the preceding May, Gen. Brax- 
to Kentucky. ^^^ Bragg had taken some 35,000 of the confed- 
erate force by rail to Mobile, and thence northward again 
to Chattanooga, which he occupied. From Chattanooga 
as a base, he moved upon Louisville, Kentucky ; but an 
army under General Buell was too quick for him, check- 
ing him in a decisive action at Perryville, Oct. 8, 1862, 
and necessitating his retirement to Chattanooga. General 
Van Dorn had taken advantage of this diversion to lead 
a confederate force against Corinth, and had almost pos- 
sessed himself of the town when he was driven back by 
General Rosecrans, on the second day of desperate fight- 
ing, Oct. 4, 1862. Step by step the operations of the 
two armies were transferred to the central strongholds 
Tennessee of Tennessee and Georgia. Rosecrans suc- 
campaign. ceeded Buell in command of the federal forces 
in Tennessee, and just as the year 1862 was closing and 
the year 1863 opening (December 31 to January 2), he 
encountered Bragg in three days' terrible fighting around 
Murfreesboro. The federal force held its ground against 
Bragg's terrific attacks, or, having lost it, regained it, and 
Bragg withdrew. Forced back by the movements of the 



232 Secessio7i and Civil War, [§§ 112-114 

federal armies during the summer and autumn of 1863, 
Bragg felt obliged to leave even Chattanooga itself to 
them ; but at Chickamauga, Georgia, on the 19th and 
20th of September, he made a stand against Rosecrans, 
and inflicted upon him a defeat which nothing but the 
extraordinary coolness and firmness of General Thomas, 
who commanded the left federal wing, prevented from 
becoming the most overwhelming federal disaster of the 
war. 

General Grant now came from his success at Vicks- 
burg to take charge of the army which Bragg had shut 
Grant m up in Chattanooga. Taking advantage of the 
Tennessee, absence of a portion of Bragg's besieging 
force, sent to meet Burnside in eastern Tennessee, Grant 
attacked Bragg's positions upon Missionary Ridge and 
Lookout Mountain, November 24 and 25, with such force 
and success as to compel him to break up the siege and 
retreat. Bragg fell back to Dalton. General Longstreet, 
with the force which Bragg had sent into eastern Tennes- 
see, crossed the mountains and joined Lee in Virginia. 
Then came the winter's pause of arms. 

113. The Wational Bank System (1863-1864). 

The Thirty-eighth Congress convened Dec. 7, 1863, 
with a large Republican majority in the Senate, and a 
sufficient working majority in the House, and 
before its adjournment, July 2, 1864, had 
pushed forward very vigorously the financial legislation 
by which it was seeking to support the war. It autho- 
rized new loans, new direct taxes, new and heavier tariff 
duties, and it revised and amended the National Bank 
Banking ^ct of the prcvious year. By a law of Feb. 
system. 25, 1 863, a national bank system had been cre- 

ated, at the suggestion of Mr. Chase, the Secretary of the 
Treasury, based substantially upon the " free banking " 



1863, 1S64.] National Bank System. 233 

system originated in New Yori-c in 1838 (§49). June 4, 

1864, a new Act was substituted for the legislation of 
the previous year, by way of a thorough revision of the 
measure first adopted. The immediate purpose of this 
legislation was to create a market for the bonds of the 
government. It helped the government very much while 
the war lasted, and it proved the foundation of an admir- 
able financial system. It created a new Treasury bureau, 
under a "Comptroller of the Currency," whom it "author- 
ized to permit the establishment, for a term not exceed- 
ing twenty years, of banking associations consisting of 
not less than five persons, with a minimum capital, except 
in small places, of one hundred thousand dollars. Such 
associations were required to deposit with the Treasury 
Department United States bonds to the extent of at 
least one-third their capital, for which there should be 
issued to them circulating notes in amount equal to ninety 
per cent of the market value of their bonds, but not be- 
yond ninety per cent of the par value of such 

urren y. bonds." The issue of currency made in this 
manner was not to exceed three hundred millions, " that 
amount to be apportioned among the States according to 
population and banking capital." It was intended that 
state banks should take advantage of these Acts to ob- 
tain national issues ; but very few of them did so until 
after the passage of the Act of March 3, 1865, which put 
a tax of ten per cent on their circulation. After that, 
hundreds of state banks were at once converted into 
national banks, and national bank notes superseded all 
others. 

114. Military Operations of 1864. 

It was not Congress, however, but the fortunes of the 
armies in the field and the approach of another presiden- 
tial election that principally engaged the attention of the 



234 Secession and Civil War. [§ 114. 

country. General Grant's steady successes in the West 

made him the principal figure of the war on the federal 

side, and in March, 1864, he was put in 

General Grant -, r t-, ■, . , , 

commander- Command 01 all the armies of the United 
m-chief. States, with the rank of lieutenant-general. 

Giving the western command to General Sherman, whom 
he had learned to depend upon at Vicksburg and Chat- 
tanooga, he himself assumed direct control of the opera- 
tions in the East against Lee. Then began the final 
movements of the war. In May, Grant, with Meade, ad- 
vanced from the Potomac upon Lee, who lay between 
Battles in the them and Richmond. The armies met in the 
"Wilderness." u Wilderness " of wood and thick undergrowth 
that stretched south of Fredericksburg and the Rap- 
pahannock to the York River. The federal army greatly 
outnumbered Lee's force, but Lee operated on shorter 
lines and behind intrenchments. Although forced slowly 
back by the flank movements of his opponent, which 
constantly threatened to cut him off from Richmond, 
the great confederate commander held Grant in hand 
for sixteen days of wellnigh continuous fighting, before 
Advance on making a stand at Cold Harbor. There, on 
Richmond, ^q. 2d of June, Grant stormed his position 
along its whole line, but was decisively repulsed with 
great loss within an hour. Failing thus upon Lee's 
front, Grant threw his forces across the James River to 
the left and advanced upon Petersburg, to cut off Rich- 
mond's supphes from the South; but here again he was 
balked of his purpose, and had to content himself with 
sitting down before Petersburg for a nine months' siege. 
There were operations, meanwhile, in the valley of Vir- 
ginia, from which the federal forces under General Hun- 
ter had been driven earlier in the year. General Early, 
with part of Lee's troops, operating there during the 
summer and early autumn, defeated both General Lew 



1864.] Military Operations. 235 

Wallace and General Crook, and even, by a rapid move- 
ment, came upon the defences of Washington, when, with 
but a httle more promptness, he might have taken them. 
But in the end he was driven back by Sheridan, and all 
forces concentrated about Richmond and Petersburg. 

While Grant was forcing Lee back upon Richmond, 
Sherman was forcing Joseph E. Johnston, Bragg's suc- 
L St o er- cessor in the confederate command, back upon 
ations in Atlanta. As in the " Wilderness," so here, 
eorgia. there was continuous fighting, but no set battle, 
Johnston not being strong enough to face Sherman in the 
open field, but only strong enough to effect a most hand- 
some retreat. By July Johnston was in Atlanta, for a 
final stand upon the edge of the great tableland that 
stretched thence southward to the sea. Affecting dis- 
satisfaction with Johnston's policy of retreat. President 
Davis removed him from the command and substituted 
General Hood. Sherman's chief difficulty was removed. 
Repulsing Hood's repeated rash attacks upon him, and 
moving around Atlanta, Sherman cut its lines of sup- 
ply and took the place, September 2. Hood withdrew 
northward towards Tennessee, apparently hoping to draw 
Sherman after him. But Sherman left him to face 
Thomas, and himself prepared to march southward to 
the sea. Hood met and drove back a portion of Thomas's 
army at Franklin, Tennessee, and encamped before 
Thomas himself at Nashville. Here Thomas attacked 
him, December 15, and so utterly defeated him that hia 
army was never brought together again as an effective 
force. Sherman meanwhile had moved as he pleased. 
Sherman's ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ Atlanta in November. In Decem- 
march to ber he reached and took Savannah. Turning 
northwards thence, he traversed South Caro- 
lina, in the opening months of 1865, ruthlessly destroy- 
ing and burning as he went. No seaport of importance 



2'^6 Secession and Civil War. [§§114-116. 

now remained in the hands of the confederates, for 
Mobile had been taken, August 5, 1864, by Admiral Far- 
ragut, in co-operation with land forces ; Sherman's move- 
ments had forced the evacuation of Charleston; and 
before he left Savannah, Fort Fisher and Wilmington, 
North Carolina, had been taken by the naval and mili- 
tary forces operating there. Sherman had only to find 
employment for Joseph E. Johnston, who retreated before 
him in North Carolina, in order to leave Grant free to 
work his will upon Richmond and Petersburg. 



115. Presidential Election of 1864. 

The presidential election of 1864 had resulted in the 
_. . , easy choice of Lincoln for a second term. It 
tion with had looked for a time, to those who watched 
Lincoln. ^^ politicians only, as if it would be difficult 
to obtain a re-nomination for Mr. Lincoln. He had not 
satisfied the radical men at all ; he had seemed to them 
much too conservative about some things, and much too 
arbitrary about others. The feeling against him found 
strong expression in the resolutions of a convention of 
some three hundred and fifty persons which met in 
Cleveland, Ohio, May 31, 1864, and by acclamation nom- 
inated General John C. Fremont for the presidency. 

The convention which met in Baltimore on the 17th of 
June to nominate Mr. Lincoln was not a Republican con- 
Republican vention exclusively, but a convention of all 
convention, ^j^g groups, Democrats included, who were in 
favor of the full maintenance of the Union. It put upon 
the ticket with Mr. Lincoln, therefore, as its candidate for 
the vice-presidency, Andrew Johnson, a Union man, but 
a Democrat, of Tennessee. Its platform strongly in- 
dorsed what the administration had done ; favored the 
oensioning of the soldiers who had received " disabling' 



i364, 1S65.] ^ Presidential Election. 237 

and honorable wounds ; " approved " the speedy construc- 
tion of a railroad to the Pacific coast ; " and pledged itself 
to the full payment of the national debt, so enormously 
swelled by the war. 

The Democratic convention, which met in Chicago 
on August 29, easily found strong grounds of complaint 
Democratic against Mr. Lincoln's administration. In 
convention, ycry many cases he had unquestionably ex- 
ceeded, oftentimes very greatly, his constitutional powers, 
acting always in good conscience, no doubt, and cer- 
tainly never with any purpose of usurpation, but doing 
what only the supreme exigency of the situation could in 
any wise warrant. But a supreme exigency did exist, 
and protest from the Democrats was of no weight at such 
a moment. They declared the war, moreover, to have 
been "four years of failure," and then made themselves 
ridiculous by nominating for the presidency General 
•McClellan, who hastened to say, in his letter of accep- 
tance, that it had been nothing of the kind. The result 

of the campaign was a foregone conclusion. 

General Fremont withdrew, and Mr. Lincoln 
carried every State that took part in the election, except 
New Jersey, Delaware, and Kentucky. Almost imme- 
diately after his second inauguration came the end of 
the war. 

116. The End of the Wax (1865). 

Assisted by Sheridan, Grant drew his overwhelming 
forces round about Lee, forcing him, the while, to weaken 
Lee's sur- himself by desperate efforts to keep open his 
render. Hnes of supply to the south. April 2, Lee 

withdrew from Richmond, which was no longer tenable, 
and sought to effect a junction with Johnston towards-' 
Danville; but everywhere he was cut off and outnum- 
bered, and on April 9 he surrendered to Grant at Appo- 



238 Secession and Civil War, [§§ 116, 117. 

mattox Court House, being granted the most honorable 
terms by his generous antagonist. Both men and offi- 
cers were to be released upon parole, and they were to 
keep their horses, "because they would need them for the 
spring ploughing and farm work." On the 26th, Johnston 
surrendered to Sherman upon similar terms, and the war 
was over. 

But the President was dead. He was shot while in 
his box at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, on the evening 
Lincoln's o^ the 14th of April, by John Wilkes Booth, a 
assassination, distinguished actor, who was also a half crazed 
enthusiast for the southern cause. Mr. Lincoln's death 
took away the best assurance the country could have had 
of a wise policy of reconstruction. The assassin lost his 
life while trying to make good his escape. 



i86i, 1862.] Method of Secession, 239 



CHAPTER X. 

CONSTITUTION AND GOVEBNli/tENT OF THE 
CONFEDEHATE STATES (1861-1865). 

117. Method of Secession. 

Stupendous as was the war struggle from every point 
of view, its deepest and most extraordinary qualities are 
The two revealed only when it is viewed from the side 
combatants, of the southem Confederacy. On the part 
of the North it was a wonderful display of spirit and 
power, a splendid revelation of national strength and 
coherency, a capital proof of quick, organic vitality 
throughout a great democratic body politic. A nation 
awoke into consciousness, shook its locks, and estab- 
lished its power. But its material resources for the 
stupendous task never lacked or were doubted ; they 
even increased while it spent them. On the part of the 
South, on the other hand, the great struggle was main- 
tained by sheer spirit and devotion, in spite of constantly 
diminishing resources and constantly waning hope. Her 
whole strength was put forth, her resources spent, ex- 
hausted, annihilated ; and yet with such concentration 
of energy that for more than three years she seemed as 
fully equal to the contest as did the North itself. And 
all for a belated principle of government, an outgrown 
economy, an impossible purpose. There is, in history, 
no devotion not religious, no constancy not meant for 
success, that can furnish a parallel to the devotion and 
constancy of the South in this extraordinary war. 

The separateness of the South in character and develop 



240 Secession and Civil War. [§117. 

ment we have several times spoken of. It had again and 
again been manifested at critical moments in the history 
Sovereign of national politics : more and more emphat- 
conventions. j^^jjy ^g ^^iQ rest of the country expanded 
and changed its character. But never had it been so 
manifest as it became amidst the processes of secession 
and war. The South then resumed, most naturally, the 
political methods of 1788. The whole country had acted 
then, in adopting the new government of the Union, 
through conventions, as through sovereign bodies. The 
Constitution had not been submitted to the vote of the 
people. As the whole country acted then, so did South 
Carolina and her companion States act now, in the mo- 
mentous winter of 1860-1861. Again popular conven- 
tions became sovereign bodies. They repealed the Acts 
of those elder conventions by which their States had 
come into the Union ; they elected delegates to attend 
a common convention at Montgomery for the formation 
of a new confederation ; and when the Montgomery con- 
vention had framed a constitution and chosen temporary 
officers for the new government, they ratified its acts. 
Nothing went to the people until the year's term appointed 
for the provisional government of the Confederacy had 
expired. Then the people chose electors and elected 
members to serve in the new Congress. The electors 
confirmed the provisional choice of Mr. Davis and Mr. 
Stephens as President and Vice-President. 

This was but carrying the old theory of the sovereignty 

of the popular convention logically a little farther, using 

it to serve the pressing exigencies of a critical stage of 

transition, when concert and .promptness of 

Popular . _.. 

feeling in actiou couutcd lor evcrythmg. It is impossi- 
the South. i^jg ^Q believe that what was thus done lacked 
the substantial support of the people. That secession was 
the project of the leading classes in the South, the men in 



ib6i, 1862] Methods of Secession, 241 

whom pride of race and of self-direction was most pro- 
nounced, is not to be doubted. Such a policy did not 
spring from the impulse of the great body of the white 
people in the South. In Georgia, at any rate, if nowhere 
else in the group of cotton States, there was at first a 
decided preponderance of opinion against any measures 
so extreme and hazardous. But the voting population of 
the southern States was in a sense the most political in 
the world, — the least likely to follow blindly, because the 
most deeply interested in politics, closely attentive to its 
issues, and even to its personalities, sensitive to nothing 
more keenly than to new aspects of public affairs. It 
could be managed by its leaders only because it was so 
thoroughly homogeneous, only because it so entirely 
understood and sympathized with their points of view. 
While the political leaders of the South, therefore, car- 
ried secession on their own initiative, they carried it by 
persuasion, not by usurpation; by the domination of 
argument rather than by mere domination of will. Men 
who intimately knew the minds of their fellow-voters went 
up and down the districts where there was doubt; con- 
vinced the majority that new terms should be made with 
the Union, and that better terms could be made out of it 
than in it ; and gained, by appeal and the communication 
of strong convictions, that popular support without which 
they would have ventured to do nothing. .If some were 
moved against their judgment, very few were moved 
against their principles. 

The principles upon which secession was attempted 
were, indeed, plain enough to everybody in the South, 
Principle of ^.ud needed no argument The national idea 
secession. y^^A never supplanted in the South the original 
theory of the Constitution. Southern opinion had stood 
with Calhoun all along in regarding the Constitution as 
an instrument of confederation, not of national consolida- 

16 



242 Secession and Civil War. [§§117,118. 

tion. Even in the North the national idea had been slow 
to grow. Webster's interpretation of the Constitution, 
in his reply to Hayne, had been a prophecy rather than 
a statement of accomplished fact. Even after the southern 
States had acted upon the old-time theory and seceded, 
the North for a moment v/as not sure that they had acted 
beyond their right. It required the terrible exercise of 
prolonged war to impart to the national idea diffused 
vitahty and authentic power. 

118. The Confederate Constitution (1862). 

The Constitution framed by the Montgomery conven- 
tjon, although in most respects a reproduction of the 
Constitution of the United States, was made very explic- 
it upon all points of controversy under the older instru- 
ment. The southern leaders were not dissatisfied with 
Constitution- the Constitution of the Urited States as they 
al changes, understood it ; they were dissatisfied only with 
the meanings which they conceived to have been read 
into it by a too loose and radical interpretation. In the 
new constitution which they framed for themselves it was 
explicitly stated that in the adoption of the instrument 
each State acted " in its sovereign and independent char- 
acter." Protective tariffs were specifically prohibited, as 
well as all internal improvements at the general charge. 
It embodied the principle of the recognition and protec- 
tion of slavery in all the Territories of the new govern- 
ment. It added to the separate weight of the individual 
States by providing that in the Senate, when the question 
was the admission of a new State, the vote should be 
taken by a poll of the States ; and by according to each 
of the several state legislatures the right to impeach 
confederate officers whose duties were confined to their 
own territory. The demand of three States was made 



i862,] The Confederate Constitution. 243 

sufficient to secure the calling of a convention for the 
amendment of the constitution. The States were denied, 
on the other hand, the privilege which they had enjoyed 
under the federal Constitution, of granting the franchise 
to persons not citizens under the general law of naturali- 
zation. 

Such other changes of the federal Constitution as 
were introduced were changes, for the most part, only of 
detail, meant to improve the older instrument 
where experience was thought to have shown 
it susceptible of alteration for the better. The presiden- 
tial term was lengthened to six years, and the President 
was made ineligible for re-election. The President was 
given the right to veto individual items of appropriation 
bills, and Congress was forbidden to make any appro- 
priations not asked for and estimated by the heads of 
the executive departments, except by a two-thirds vote, 
unless such appropriations were for the legitimate ex- 
penses of Congress itself or for the payment of just 
claims, judicially determined, upon the government. 
Congress was given the right to bring itself into closer 
co-operative relations with the Executive by granting 
seats, with the privileges of debate, to the heads of the 
executive departments ; and it was granted a partial over- 
sight of the President's relations with his subordinates 
by the provision that, except in the cases of the chief 
executive and diplomatic agents of the government, no 
official should be removed except for cause expHcitly 
stated to the Senate. The power to emit bills of credit 
was withheld from Congress. The slave trade was pro- 
hibited, and Congress was empowered to prevent even 
the introduction of slaves from the States of the Union. 

Much as there was among these changes that was 
thoroughly worth trying, it was of course impossible to 
test anything fairly amidst the furious storms of civil 



244 Secession and Civil War. [§§ nS, 119, 

war. One of the most interesting of them, — the per- 
mission to introduce the heads of the executive depart- 
Cabinet and ments into Congress, — had actually been 
Congress. practised under the provisional government 
of 1 861 ; but under the formal constitution the houses, as 
was to have been expected, never took any steps towards 
putting it into practice. The Congress was inclined 
from time to time to utter some very stinging criticisms 
upon the executive conduct of affairs. It could have ut- 
tered them with much more dignity and effect in the 
presence of the officers concerned, who were in direct 
contact with the difficulties of administration. It might 
then, perhaps, have hoped in some sort to assist in the 
guidance of administration. As it was, it could only 
criticise, and then yield without being satisfied. 

119. Eesources of the South (1861). 

For it was inevitable in any case, in the presence of 
a war of such exigency, that the suggestions of the Ex- 
ecutive should be imperative, its power very little re- 
strained. Almost every atom of force stored up in the 
southern country had to be gathered into a single head 
of strength in the stupendous struggle that ensued, and 
only some central and unified authority could serve the 
instant necessities of command. The population of the 
J . country in i860 was 31,443,321. The States 
which seceded contained less than one third 
of this population; and out of their 9,103,343 more than 
three million and a half were slaves. The white male 
population of the South, reckoning all ages, was only 
2,799,818 ; and the North was to call more than two mil- 
lion and a half men into the field before the v/ar ended. 
The South, moreover, was an agricultural region, and 
almost without material resources of any other kind. It 



i86i.] Resources of the South. 24 1 

produced all the cotton, almost all the rice, and a very- 
large proportion of the tobacco of the country. Nearly 
one-third of the Indian corn came from the 
southern fields ; hardly more than one-fifth of 
the wheat, however, and just one-tenth of the rye. Man- 
ufactures there were none, — except here and there an 
isolated cotton factory or flour mill. The principal mar- 
kets for the great cotton and tobacco crops, moreover, lay 
beyond the borders of the Confederacy; the South bought 
what it needed in the shape of manufactured products in 
the North or abroad, where its own products were sold. 
The wealth of the southern States was not a money 
wealth : the planters had no money until their crops were 
sold, and most of what they received then had to be de- 
voted to the payment of what they had borrowed in anti- 
cipation of the harvest. As the federal government 
increased its navy from month to month, and the blockade 
of the Southern ports became more and more effective, 
the crops, which usually sold for millions, only accumu- 
Cotton and lated, uselcss for the present, and without 
the blockade, value, and money there was none. The value 
of the cotton export in i860 was $202,741,351; in 1861 
it was but forty-two millions ; in 1862 but four millions. 
It was money and men and arms, of course, that the 
Confederacy most needed. The men were at first forth- 
coming in abundance : President Davis's call for volun- 
teers was as heartily responded to as was President 
Lincoln's. But in the matter of money and arms it was 
different, and even men were presently hard to get. The 
federal arsenals in the South had been seized by the 
States as they seceded, and many thousand stand of arms 
and a great deal of ammunition had been seized with 
them ; for their stores had been replenished as late as the 
spring of i860, when General Scott was asking leave 
from the Secretary of War to station troops in the South 



246 Secession and Civil War, [§§ 1 19-121. 

to prevent secession. Secretary Floyd had sent arms, 
but no soldiers. What was thus seized, however, did not 
suffice to equip even the southern armies that first went 
into the field ; and there were no manufactories of arms 
or ordnance in the South. 

120. "War Materials and Men (1861-1865). 

Arms and military stores were sent for to England, 
and brought in through the blockade, or across Texas, 
after transportation through Mexico. Private 
fowling pieces were purchased or contributed 
by their owners, and were actually used by the troops in 
the field. There were muskets in use and side-arms that 
had come down as heirlooms from the times of the Re- 
volution. Preparations were begun to arm some regi- 
ments with pikes simply. Brass bells of all kinds and 
sizes were called for, to be melted down and cast into 
cannon ; devoted housekeepers even contributed their 
brass preserving kettles, and everything else that they 
possessed that was made of brass, for the same purpose. 
Not until the war was more than half fought out, and al- 
most decided, had the necessary factories been built and 
equipped for the manufacture of the arms and military 
supplies needed by the armies. 

The supply of men, too, speedily proved inadequate as 
against the great levies of the North, and conscription 
was resorted to. In April, 1862, the Confederate Con- 
gress passed an Act making all males between 
onscnp ion, ^^^ ages of eighteen and thirty-five subject 
to military service, and in September of the same year 
the provisions of the Act were extended to all males be- 
tween the ages of eighteen and forty-five. Before the 
war ended, the conscription was extended even to boys 
of sixteen and seventeen and to old men. Slaves served 
the armies from the first in labor upon fortifications, as 



1861-1865.] War Materials a?td Men. 247 

teamsters, hostlers, cooks, and body servants. Just before 
the close of the war, after much natural hesitation and 
debate, the Congress had, with something like the gen- 
eral consent, determined to enroll some of the slaves as 
troops. But this resolution was taken too late to be of 
any practical advantage, or disadvantage. The principal 
function of the slaves throughout was to cultivate the 
crops, which all the white men had been obliged to leave 
for service in the armies ; and they proved both their 
docility and their contented faithfulness by keeping 
quietly and obediently to their tasks, with few but wo- 
men to oversee them. 

121. Financial Measiires (1861-1865). 

In its extraordinary straits for money, the government 

of the Confederacy had resort to every expedient known 

to finance, even the most desperate. It issued 

Paper money. ^ , , .,,. 

treasury notes by the million, payable "six 
months after the close of the war," but never undertook 
to make them legal tender ; it asked and obtained from 
the planters loans from their crops, promises that, when 
their cotton was sold, the price of a certain number of the 
^ , bales or of a certain proportion of the crop 

Cotton loans. it,, . , , ^ , 

should be paid over to the government for the 
conduct of the war, eight per cent bonds being given in 
return. But as time went on, less and less of these crops 
could be sold, and the government was driven to make 
direct purchases of the products of the field, paying its 
eight per cent bonds therefor ; for there was nothing else 
to pay. The States undertook to support their own quotas 
of troops so far as possible, and themselves began to make 
„ ... paper issues for the purpose. In some cases 

Requisitions. ,. . , f ^ . . , 

supplies for the armies were taken from the 
people as required, and state certificates of indebtedness 
paid for them. The property of all alien enemies was 



248 Secession and Civil War. [§§ 121, 122 

sequestrated. In 1863, not without exciting great indig- 
nation, the Congress authorized the seizure of food sup- 
plies at rates of payment fixed, not by the farmers, but 
by state commissioners, who were to make their as- 
sessments of prices every sixty days. At first both the 
. . farmers and the government had lived on 
credit, hoping for the sale of the crops ; but at 
last, when credit was gone, it became necessary to Hve 
directly upon the produce of the fields. Repeated, even 
desperate, attempts were made by the Congress to pre- 
vent, by some legislative device, even by obligatory re- 
demption, the rapid depreciation of the vast mass of 
paper that had got into circulation; but of course all 
attempts failed, and the circulating medium became al- 
most worthless. 

The crops did not fail. In 1864, the last and most dis- 
astrous year of the war, they were particularly abundant. 
There was no lack of corn or garden produce 
means of or Hch pasture. But the means of distribut- 
transportation. -^^^ ^j^^^ ^j^^ fj^j^g produced, of bringing it 

within reach of the armies, and of others who were al- 
most starving, were wretchedly inadequate. The south- 
ern lines of railway were few in number and inferior in 
equipment ; and as the war advanced, their efficiency stead- 
ily dechned. So great was the demand for men in the 
field that few were left to keep the roads in repair; so 
great the scarcity of iron that there were no materials for 
their repair. The rails wore out, and were not renewed ; 
the running stock ran down, and could not be replaced. 
The railways came to be controlled almost wholly by the 
government, too, as means of military transportation, and 
the main lines were extended or repaired by the use of 
ties and rails taken from the shorter side lines. All pro 
vident management was out of the question. 



1861-1865.] Character of the Government, 249 

122. Character of the Government (1861-1865). 

Such trade as did make its way through the blockade was 
used, like everything else, to support the government. 
Foreign An Order of the confederate Treasury com- 

trade. manded that no vessel be granted a clearance 

unless at least one half of her cargo were shipped, on gov- 
ernment account, from the otherwise unsalable stores 
which the government had been accumulating. The his- 
tory of the Confederacy was the history of the absorption 
Centrali- of "^ the resources of the southern country 
zation. jj^^Q ^]-^g hands of the confederate authorities. 

Everything gave way, even law itself, before the inex- 
orable exigencies of war. The executive personnel of 
the government was for the most part excellent ; but 
excellence felt bound to approve itself in those days of 
trial and jeopardy by an energetic and effective prosecu- 
tion of the war. The Congress, never meet- 
ongre s. .^^ ^^ heads of the departments face to face, 
and yet bound to provide for every executive need, v;as as 
wax in the hands of the Executive ; it hardly carried 
weight enough to make an effectual resistance. At first 
some men of marked ability had entered it. But there 
seemed greater need for leaders in the field of battle than 
for leaders in counsel ; the rewards of distinction were 
much greater at the front than in the debates at Rich- 
mond ; and the Congress was left almost stripped of men 
of influence and initiative. Its weight in counsel was 
still further lessened by the somewhat fictitious charac- 
ter of its make-up. In both the first and second Con- 
gresses of the Confederacy members were present from 
Kentucky and Missouri. The people of certain portions 
of those States, in their passionate sympathy with tlie 
States which had seceded, had broken with their own 
state governments in revolutionary fashion, and had 



250 Secession and Civil War. [§§ 122, 123, 

sent representatives to the confederate House and Sen- 
ate. And the confederate Congress had admitted them 
to seats, upon the theory that they represented the real 
popular authorities of their States. 

From the first, when subjects of defence were under 
consideration, the sessions of the Congress had been 
Secret secret ; as the struggle advanced, this privacy 

sessions. Qf action was extended to a large number of 
other subjects, and secrecy became more and more the 
rule. This was due, no doubt, to a combination of in- 
fluences. Military affairs engrossed most of the time and 
attention of the body, and it was not prudent to discuss 
military affairs in public. But, more than that, it became 
increasingly difficult to command the approval of opin- 
ion out of doors for what was done by the government. 
Whatever might have been the necessity for the execu- 
tive domination which had been so absolutely established, 
the people grew very restless under it. The writ of 
habeas corpus had been early suspended in the South, as 
in the North, and every one suspected of being out of 
sympathy with the government was subject to arbitrary 
arrest. A passport system, too, had been put in force 
which placed exasperating restraints upon the free move- 
ment of individuals. 

123. Opposition and Despair (1864). 
It was not easy to bear, even for the purposes of the 
war, so complete an absorption alike of all authority and 

of all the resources of the country into the 
e mmon y. -j^g^j^^^g q£ ^^ Executive as had taken place, 

with the assistance of the Congress. Exhaustion and 
despair began to supervene upon the terrible exertions 
and sacrifices which the awful struggle had necessitated. 
There was a certain, not inconsiderable, body of opinion 
which from the first had not been convinced of the jus- 



1864.J opposition and Despair. 251 

tice and wisdom of the war. It had yielded to the major 
judgment under the exasperation of coercion by the 
North and of federal emancipation of the slaves. These 
measures had set the faces of all ahke as steel to endure 
the contest. But conservative opinion had assented to 
secession at the first only as a promised means of mak- 
ing new terms with the Union. After giving many 
soundest proofs of its submission to the general will, it 
at length grew impatient for peace. 

As the war advanced beyond the disasters of 1863, 
hope declined, and despair showed itself more openly. 
Desperate The ports were closed, and the South was left 
situation. to eat its heart out with the desperate fighting. 
There was no longer any shadow of hope of foreign rec- 
ognition. For a time the Enghsh spinners had not felt 
the pinch of cotton famine ; there was as much cotton in 
Liverpool at the beginning of the year 1862 as there had 
been at the beginning of 1861, And when the pinch did 
come, the spinners declared themselves, nevertheless, 
against slavery or the recognition of a slave government. 
Except for the sake of the spinners, England had nothing 
to gain by a recognition of the southern Confederacy. 
The bulk of her trade was with the North, and the North 
was powerful enough to resent interference. And so the 
demand for peace at length grew clamorous even in the 
South. Wholesale desertions from the confederate army 
became common, the men preferring the duty of succor- 
ing their starving families to the desperate chances of 
further fighting. 

And yet the end did not come until Sherman had made 
his terrible march through Georgia and the Carolinas, — 
Devastation. ^ "^^^^h almost unprecedented in modern war- 
fare for its pitiless and detailed rigor and thor- 
oughness of destruction and devastation. It illustrated 
the same deliberate and business-like purpose of destroy- 



252 Secession and Civil War. [§§ 123, 124. 

ing utterly the power of the South that had shown itself 
in the refusal of the federal government to exchange pris- 
oners with the Confederacy. The southern prisons were 
left full to overflowing with thousands upon thousands of 
prisoners because the South was known to be using up 
her population in the struggle, and it was not thought 
best to send any fighting men back to her. The south- 
ern troops were themselves enduring hunger for lack of 
supplies ; and the prisoners too, of course, suffered severe 
privations, aggravated by the necessity of placing large 
numbers under the guard of small forces, by the difficul- 
ties of transportation, and by a demoralization in prison 
administration inevitable under the circumstances. It 
was impossible that they should be well cared for in 
such overwhelmingly burdensome numbers. But General 
Grant said that they were dying for the Union as much 
where they were as if they died in the field. 

And so the war ended, with the complete prostration 
and exhaustion of the South. The South had thrown 
her life into the scales and lost it ; the North 
had strained her great resources to the ut- 
most; there had been extraordinary devotion and heroism 
and mastery of will on both sides ; and the war was over. 
Nearly a million men had lost their lives; the federal 
government had spent almost eight hundred millions of 
revenue upon the war, and had accumulated, besides, a 
debt of nearly three thousand milhon dollars. Cities, 
too, and States had poured out their revenues for the 
purposes of the war. Untold amounts of property had 
been destroyed. But now it was over ; the federal army 
of over a million men was rapidly disbanded, being sent 
home at the rate of three hundred thousand a month ; 
and only fifty thousand men were retained as a standing 
force. Now that the whirlwind had passed, there was 
much to be reconstructed. 



V. 
REHABILITATION OF THE UNION 

(1865-1889). 

124. Keferences. 

Bibliographies. — Lalor's Cyclopaedia (Johnston's articles on 
"Reconstruction," "Impeachments," "Credit Mobilier," "Disputed 
Elections"); Foster's References to the History of Presidential 
Administrations, 49-58; Bowker's Reader's Guide, /assntz ; John 
Fiske's Civil Government, 275; A. B. Hart's Federal Government, 
§ 469; Gordyand Twitchell, Pathfinder in American History, p. 198 ff. 

Historical Maps. — No. 5, this volume (Epoch Maps, No. 14); 
MacCoun's Historical Geography of the United States, series " Na- 
tional Growth," 1853-1859, and series " Development of the Common- 
wealth," last two maps ; Scribner's Statistical Atlas, plate 17. 

General Accounts. — Johnston's American Politics, chaps, xxi.- 
xxvi. ; Channing's Student's History of the United States, §§ 375- 
400 ; Ridpath's History of the United States, chaps. Ixvii.-lxx. (to 
iSSi) ; Henry Wilson's Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, 
iii. 434-740 (1865-1869). 

Special Histories. — Edv/ard Stanwood's Presidential Elections, 
chaps, xxii.-end; Edward McPherson's History of Reconstruction: 
Walter Allen's Governor Chamberlain's Administration in South 
Carolina; R. H. Wilmer's Recent Past, from a Southern Standpoint; 
F. W. Seward's Seward at Washington, ii., xli.-lxxiii. ; Taylor's De- 
struction and Reconstruction; E. B. Callender's Thaddeus Stevens; 
Pleasant Stovall's Toombs, pp. 286-369; O. A. Brownson's American 
Republic (chaps, xiii.-xiv.) ; J. C. Hurd's Theory of Our National 
Existence; F. W. Taussig's Tariff History, pp. 171-256; Albert 
Bolles's Financial History, iii., book ii. ; A. B. Hart's Salmon P. 
Chase; D. B. Warden's Chase; Moorfield Story's Charles Sumner 
(in preparation); E. L. Pierce's Charles Sumner; Landon's The 
Constitutional History and Government of the United States. 



254 Rekahilitation of the Union. [§§ 124, 125. 

Contemporary Accounts. — Appleton's Annual Cjxlopsedia; 
Edward McPherson's History of Reconstruction, and Political Hand- 
books (biennial); Hugh McCuUoch's Men and Measures of Half a 
Century (chaps, xxiii.-end) ; Autobiography of Thurlow Weed (chaps. 
Ixvi.-lxviii.) ; S. S. Cox's Three Decades (chaps, xvii.-xl.); J. G. 
Blaine's Twenty Years in Congress (1865-1885); Ben : Perley Poore's 
Perley's Reminiscences (chaps, xvii.-xlvii.); Alexander Johnston's 
Representative American Orations, iii. (parts vii., viii.) ; J. S. Pike's 
The Prostrate State (S. C.) ; Works of Charles Sumner; contempo' 
rary periodicals, especially Atlantic Monthly, Forum, North Americai^ 
Review, Nation, Political Science Quarterly. 



CHAPTER XI. 
KECOnsrSTRUCTION (1865-1870). 

125. The Problem of Reconstruction (1864-1865). 

The federal Constitution, no less than the confederate^ 
had suffered severe strain under the weight of war. It 
had not been framed for times of civil strife, 
tution and The President felt himself forced by circum- 
thewar. stances to exercise an arbitrary power in 

many things. The Department of War became the real 
government of the country. Arbitrary arrests were made 
by the thousand, not only in the border States and where 
the federal armies were in occupancy, but also in the 
North. No one suspected of disaffection was safe. 
Judges were seized, mayors of cities, in Maryland mem- 
bers of the state legislature, and everywhere editors of 
newspapers and those who held " peace meetings," as 
well as those who were accused of being spies or deser- 
ters or of resisting the draft. The President suspended 
the writ of habeas corpus as he pleased, Congress follow- 
ing many months behind him in Acts validating what he 



1861-1865.] Problem of Reconstruction. 255 

did. Men of all ranks and conditions lay imprisoned 
without hope of trial. There was of course no purpose 
of absolutism in all this. Mr. Lincoln did all things with 
a wakeful conscience, and certainly without any love of 
personal power for its own sake ; seeing substantial jus- 
tice done, too, wherever he could. But the Constitution 
was sadly strained, nevertheless. 

The close of the war, while it removed the old stress, 
put a new and even severer one upon the Constitution, 
and Mr. Lincoln was no longer present to 
southern exercise a restraining wisdom. Now that the 
States. ^^^ ^^g over, what was the status of the 

States which had attempted secession? Were they still 
members of the Union, and could their participation in 
its affairs be resumed just where it had been left off ? 
Here was another situation for which the Constitution 
had made no provision. If, as the Supreme Court subse- 
quently held, in the leading case of Texas v. White, the 
government from which they had sought to withdraw was 
" an indestructible Union of indestructible States," they 
had, in legal theory at any rate, succeeded neither in sever- 
ing their connection with the federal government nor in 
destroying their own existence as States. They were still 
States, and States in the Union. But what sort of States, 
and in what condition ? In what relation did they now 
stand to the government they had sought to destroy 1 
The President and Congress had not been in agreement 
upon these questions. Congress had not even been care- 
ful to be consistent with itself in its actions concerning 
them. It had recognized, as we have seen, the revolu- 
tionary government set up in the western counties of Vir- 
ginia in 1 861 as the regular government of the whole 
State, and had acted upon its consent in erecting the 
State of West Virginia. But when the officers of that 
government afterwards removed to Alexandria and set up 



256 Rehabilitation of the Ufiion. [§§ 125, 126 

its rule over such counties as were within the federal 
lines, Congress began to withdraw its recognition. At 
first it admitted both to the Senate and to the House per- 
sons sent to represent the " Virginia " of this govern- 
ment ; but after 1863 it declined any longer to receive its 
representatives, although it meanwhile permitted one of 
its senators to remain until his death, and the other 
until the expiration of his term. 

The President had held a very consistent theory, and 
pursued a very consistent course, from the first. While 
,. , , he conceived secession to have broken up the 

Lincoln s r i r^ i • 

views and governments of the States engaged agamst 
policy. ^Y\Q Union, he also deemed it his duty to re- 

sume full civil relations with such portions of the South 
as had been reduced to obedience, and to see that regular 
and legitimate governments were constituted in them as 
soon as possible. Acting under his constitutiorial power 
to grant reprieves and pardons, as well as by authoriza- 
tion of an Act of Congress of July of the previous year, 
he had issued a proclamation of amnesty so early as De- 
cember, 1863. Full forgetfulness and full restoration to 
all property rights, except those in slaves, were offered to 
all who would take oath faithfully to " support, protect, 
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and 
the union of the States thereunder," and "in like manner 
abide by and faithfully support " all Acts of Congress or 
proclamations of the President with reference to slaves, 
" so long and so far as not repealed, modified, or held 
void by Congress, or by decision of the Supreme Court." 
Certain classes of persons who had taken a prominent 
part in secession, or who had left the service of the 
United States for the service of the southern Confeder- 
acy, were excepted from the amnesty ; but, for the rest, it 
was declared that in any State which had attempted seces- 
sion, so soon as one tenth of the voters of i860 should 



1863-1865.] Problem of Reconstruction. 257 

have qualified by taking the oath, and should have set up 
governments republican in form under the meaning of 
the Constitution, those governments would be recognized 
by the federal Executive, although Congress would have 
to determine for itself the question of admitting represen- 
^ . . tatives elected under their authority to seats 

Preliminary . , __ . , i i i 

reconstruc- m the Houses. Arkansas had been reorgan- 
*"^"^' ized under the federal authority substantially 

after this fashion in 1863, before the proclamation; and 
before the presidential election of 1864 Mr. Lincoln had 
recognized new governments in Louisiana and Tennessee. 
But when electoral votes were sent in from Louisiana 
and Tennessee, the houses refused to receive them ; and 
this notwithstanding the fact that representatives from 
Louisiana had been admitted to seats in the House dur- 
ing the last month of the preceding Congress. 

126. Policy of Andrew Johnson (1865), 

Mr. Lincoln's death made no break in the presidential 
theory with regard to the right constitutional method of 
Johnson's reconstruction, for Mr. Johnson, the Vice- 
character. President, held views upon the subject prac- 
tically identical with those upon which Mr, Lincoln had 
acted. But the change of Presidents made all the dif- 
ference possible in the manner and temper of executive 
action. Johnson had not a touch of Lincoln's genius for 
understanding and persuading men. Of equally humble 
origin, he had risen, by virtue of a certain pugnacious 
force and initiative of character, to high posts of public 
trust; but his powers had never been schooled or refined 
as Lincoln's had been, — they always retained their na- 
tive roughness ; he was rash, headstrong, aggressive to 
the last. The party which had elected him, too, was al- 
ready inclined to suspect him. Although a Union man, 
he had been a Democrat. He had been Senator from 

17 



258 Rehabilitation of the Union. [§126. 

Tennessee when that State seceded, but had treated her 
act of secession with contempt, ignoring it, and remaining 
at his post in the Senate. He sympathized v/ith southern 
men, however, in almost everything except their hostihty 
to the Union; held strict views of state rights with an 
ardor and stubbornness characteristic of him ; and was 
sure to yield nothing for the sake of accommodation. 
He could not be right without so exasperating his op- 
ponents by his manner of being right as to put himself 
practically in the wrong. 

During the first eight months of his presidency there 
was no chance for Congress to interfere ; until the 
houses should meet, Dec. 4, 1865, he could 
of reconstruct- have his owu way in dealing with the south- 
ed States. gj.j^ States. The governments of Arkansas, 
Louisiana, and Tennessee had already been reorganized 
by the voters who could take the oath of Mr. Lincoln'^ 
amnesty proclamation. In Virginia the ''Alexandria 
government " had called together a convention, elected 
by the counties within the federal lines, in the spring of 
1864; and. that convention had adopted a constitution 
which embodied the ideas of Mr. Lincoln's proclama- 
tion, the abolition of slavery and the disfranchisement of 
those who had taken prominent parts under the Confed- 
eracy. In May, 1865, upon President Johnson's refus- 
ing to recognize the governor whom the Virginians had 
elected under the Confederacy, the Alexandria govern- 
ment became the regular government of the State. The 
constitution of 1864, with some modifications, but still 
retaining its prohibition of slavery, was adopted by the 
people. 

The President pushed forward the processes of recon- 
struction in the other States. May 29, 1865, he put forth 
an amnesty proclamation, which was substantially the 
same as Mr. Lincoln's, although it considerably increased 



1865.] Policy of Andrew Johnson. 259 

the list of those who were to be excluded from its 

privileges. By the middle of July he had appointed 

provisional o^overnors in all the States not vet 

Additional ^ . , _, . , ^ -; 

reconstruc- reorganized. The voters m those States who 
^'°"" could qualify under the proclamation at once 

proceeded to hold constitutional conventions and erect 
governments under them, being assured of the Presi- 
dent's recognition and support, should they agree to the 
abolition of slavery and establish governments which 
seemed to him republican in form, within the meaning 
of the Constitution. In every State, except Texas, these 
processes were complete by the autumn of 1865, and 
senators and representatives from the southern States 
were ready to apply for admission to their seats when 
Congress should convene. 

The new southern legislatures, moreover, had in the 
meanwhile ratified an amendment to the Constitution 
Thirteenth which Congrcss had adopted the previous 
Amendment, 'vvintcr ; and without their ratification this 
amendment would lack that assent of three-fourths of 
the States which the terms of the Constitution made in- 
dispensable to its validity, Feb. i, 1865, Congress had 
proposed to the States a Thirteenth Amendment to the 
Constitution, which should prohibit both slavery and in- 
voluntary servitude " within the United States or any 
place subject to their jurisdiction," except as a punish- 
ment for crime ; thus recalling the terms of the Wilraot 
Proviso and of the celebrated Ordinance of 1787 for the 
government of the Northwest Territory. West Virginia, 
Maryland, Tennessee, and Missouri, to whose territories 
Mr. Lincoln's emancipation proclamation had not applied, 
had by constitution or statute already begun a process 
of emancipation. If the proclamation had legal validity, 
slavery existed only in Kentucky and Delaware. Those two 
States refused to ratify the Amendment. Texas, — which 



26o Rehabilitation of the Union. [§§126 -12a 

had not yet effected the organization of a new govern- 
ment, — and Mississippi and Florida did not act upon 
it at this time. It was accepted by eleven of the former 
slaveholding States, however, together with sixteen free 
States; and on December 18 the Secretary of State, Mr. 
Seward, made official proclamation of its embodiment 
in the Constitution by the constitutional vote of twenty- 
seven of the thirty-six States. If the southern States 
did not have regular and legitimate governments, was 
this Amendment valid? 

127. Acts of Southern Legislatures (1865-1866),, 

Congress had come together, however, on December 4, 
1865, in no temper to look with favor upon the new gov 
ernments of the southern States. While the southern 
conventions, met for reconstruction, had adopted con- 
stitutions which abolished slavery, and the legislatures 
organized under those constitutions had adopted the 
Status of Thirteenth Amendment, and so apparently 
the negro. given earnest of the acceptance by the South 
of the results of the war, those very legislatures had 
immediately proceeded to pass laws which seemed to 
embody a deliberate purpose to keep the negroes in 
"involuntary servitude," if not in virtual slavery. In 
most respects the negroes were put at once upon a foot- 
ing of equitable equality with the whites in all civil 
rights; but the southern legislatures could not but re- 
gard with profound apprehension the new, unaccustomed, 
unpractised, and yet wholly unrestrained liberty of so 
vast a " laboring, landless, homeless class." In several 
of the States accordingly, —notably in Mississippi and 
Labor South Carolina, — statutes were passed with 

system. regard to employment, labor contracts, and 

vagrancy, v/hich singled out the negroes for subjection 
to very stringent and exceptional restraints. Those who 



1865-1866.] Acts of Southern Legislatures. 261 

would not work at the current rates of wages were 
to be considered vagrants, and subjected to unusual 
penalties. A great number of the minor, but more an- 
noying and demoralizing, offences likely to be committed 
by the freedmen were made punishable by fine ; and if 
the fine could not be paid, the culprit was to be hired out 
to work, by judicial process. .An apprentice system was 
in some instances adopted, by which all minor negroes 
were made subject to be bound out to labor until they 
should attain a certain age. Written contracts of labor, 
or else licenses to perform job work, issued by the 
mayors or police authorities of their places of residence, 
were in a great many cases required, which the negroes 
must show when challenged in that regard, to avoid 
charge of vagrancy ; and if proved vagrants, they could 
be arrested, fined, and made to pay off the fine by com- 
pulsory labor- 

128. The Temper of Congress (1865). 

To the southern law-makers such restraint and com- 
pulsion seemed to be demanded by ordinary prudence 
for the control and at least temporary discipline of a 
race so recently slaves, and therefore so unfit to exer- 
cise their new liberty, even with advantage to themselves, 
without some checks put upon them. But to Congress 
they seemed plain and wilful violations of the freedom 
of the negro, evidences of an open and flagrant recal- 
citrancy against the results of the war. Opinions were 
beginning to prevail among the members which looked 
towards a radical policy of reconstruction which should 
subject the southern States completely to the will of 
Congress. The Constitution having, of course, failed 
to provide for such a situation as that which now ex- 
isted, many theories had been held with regard to the 
status of the southern States after their defeat. Some 



262 Rehabilitati07i of the Union. [§§ 128, 129. 

believed that, although the ordinances of secession had 
been legally null and void, the southern States had, by 
their resistance to the laws of the Union, di- 
reco'nstruction vcsted themselvcs of statehood, and had, when 
theories. defeated, become, not States again, but mere 
conquered possessions of the federal government. " A 
Territory by coming into the Union becomes a State, and 
a State by going out of the Union becomes a Territory." 
Others held, with Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, 
that the resistance of the South to the Constitution and 
laws of the Union had suspended all federal law so far 
as they were concerned; and that that law did not revive 
with regard to them until once more declared in force, 
because of fully renewed conditions of obedience, by 
the law-making and war-making power of the general 
government, — that is, by Congress. Congress, therefore, 
could reconstruct the southern States as it pleased, and 
revive the federal Constitution with regard to them only 
when it had finished. 

This was the theory which Congress practically adopt- 
ed. It came together in December with a Republican 
majority obtained in 1864. A strong delegation of Re- 
publicans, chosen under military superintendence in the 
border States, raised that majority to more than two- 
thirds in both Houses, — a force strong enough, if united 
in opinion, to carry through any policy it chose, with the 
motto " Thorough." When organizing, the names of 
..^u u ,» all of the States that had seceded were omitted 

"Thorough." 

in the roll-call ; and immediately upon effect- 
ing an organization, a concurrent resolution was passed 
by the two houses, appointing a joint committee, of nine 
representatives and six senators, to inquire into the con- 
dition of the seceding States, and to advise Congress 
upon the question of their being entitled to representa- 
tion under their existing organizations. By the opening 



1865] Temper of Congress. 263 

of March, 1866, a joint resolution had passed, to the ef- 
fect that neither senators nor representatives should be 
received from the southern States until Congress should 
declare them entitled to representation by full re-ad- 
mission to the Union. This was meant to checkmate 
the presidential scheme of reorganization. The House 
had already resolved that the troops should be kept at 
their stations in the South until their recall should be 
directed by Congressional action. The temper of Con- 
gress had been raised to this pitch of authoritativeness by 
the irritations to which it was subjected from two quar- 
ters. It was annoyed that the President should have 
hastened to be beforehand with it in reorganizing and 
practically reinstating the southern governments ; and it 
was exasperated by the laws which the southern legis- 
latures had passed in despite of the freedom of the 
blacks. 

That legislation proved of comparatively little effect ; 
for the last Congress had, by an Act of March 3, 1865, es- 
Freedmen's tablishcd in the War Department a " Bureau of 
Bureau. Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands," 

to which it had given very wide authority to assist the 
somewhat bewildered and quite helpless hosts of liberated 
slaves in finding means of subsistence and in establishing 
their new privileges and immunities; and the officers of 
this bureau had been even officiously active in securing 
for the negroes the protection of federal authority against 
all unfriendly discriminations of local law. But that the 
southern legislation was of slight practical importance 
did not render it the less offensive to the Republican ma- 
jority in Congress. 

129. The President vs. Congress (1866). 

The law which established the " Freedmen's Bureau " 
had limited its existence to one year. On February 6 



264 Rehabilitation of the Union. [§§ 129, 130. 

1866, therefore, another bill was passed, continuing it in- 
definitely. But, besides continuing it, the bill proposed 
Second Bu- vcry greatly to increase its powers, and made 
reau Act. g^j^y attempt to obstruct, interfere with, or 
abridge the civil rights and immunities of the freed- 
men a penal offence, to be adjudged and punished by 
federal military tribunals. The President vetoed the 
measure, alleging, among other reasons for his action, 
the fact that the bill had been passed by a Congress 
in which the southern States were not represented. An 
attempt to pass the measure over the President's veto 
failed of the necessary majorities ; there were some 
members among the Republicans who were not yet pre- 
pared for an open breach with the Executive. But the 
President was rash and intemperate enough to force a 
consolidation of the majority against him. Having occa- 
sion to make a public speech on February 22, he spoke 
of Congress in the most bitter terms of contempt and 
condemnation, ascribing to its leaders disloyal and even 
criminal motives. In March Congress showed how it 
meant to respond by taking the government into its own 
hands and making law over his veto. It sent to the 
Civil Rights President a" Civil Rights " bill, declaring "all 
legislation. persons bom in the United States, and not 
subject to any foreign power," citizens of the United 
States, denouncing penalties against all interferences 
with the civil rights of any class of citizens, and giving 
to officers of the United States the right to prosecute, 
and to the federal courts alone the right to try, all such 
offences. The President vetoed the bill as both unwise 
and in excess of the constitutional powers of Congress. 
It was promptly passed over his veto, and Congress 
moved on to complete its policy without his assistance. 



i866.] Congressional Programme, 265 

130. The Congressional Programme (1866). 

Not wholly undisturbed, it would seem, by the Presi- 
dent's constitutional objections to the Civil Rights bill, 
Fourteenth Congress proposcd to the States in June, 1866, 
Amendment, ^he Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitu- 
tion, to incorporate the principles of the bill in the fun- 
damental law. It made " all persons born or naturalized 
in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction 
thereof," citizens both of the United States and of the 
several States of their residence ; provided foi a reduc- 
tion of the congressional representation of any State that 
should withhold the franchise from any male citizens of 
the voting age ; excluded from federal ofifice the most 
prominent servants of the Confederacy until Congress 
should pardon them ; and invalidated all debts or obliga 
tions " incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against 
the United States." The acceptance of this Amendment 
by the southern States was to be regarded as a condition 
precedent to their recognition by Congress. In July a bill 
continuing the Freedmen's Bureau for two years, directing 
the sale of public lands to the negroes on easy terms, ap- 
propriating the property of the confederate government 
to their education, and providing military protection foi* 
their rights, was passed over the President's veto. By 
an Act of July 24, 1866, Tennessee, which had already ac- 
cepted the Fourteenth as well as the Thirteenth Amend- 
ment, was admitted to representation in Congress. Four 
days later Congress adjourned. 

Before the adjournment the joint committee of fifteen 
which had charge of the Congressional policy of recon- 
_ struction presented a report, June 18, admir- 

Report on , , , ^ , f ■> J i 

reconstruc- ably adapted to serve as a manifesto and 
*'°"" campaign document; for a new House of 

Representatives was to be elected before Congress should 



266 ReJiabilitation of the Unio7t. [§§ 130, 131, 

convene again. It declared that the governments of the 
States recently in secession were practically suspended, 
by reason both of the irregular character of the new 
governments which had been set up, and of the reluctant 
acquiescence of the southern people in the results of the 
war; and that it was essential to the preservation of the 
Union that they should not be reinstated in their former 
privileges by Congress until they should have given sub- 
stantial pledges of loyalty and submission. The Presi- 
dent's friends, on their part, both Republicans and 
_, „ . Democrats, got together in convention and 

The Presi- ° ° 

dent accepts made a demonstration of adherence to the 
the issue. President and his policy of reconstruction 
which did not fail of producing a considerable impression. 
But the President hastened to utter violent speeches, 
which swelled the number of his radical opponents as 
rapidly as the leaders of the Congressional majority could 
have desired. On a midsummer trip to Chicago he 
made coarse and intemperate attacks upon Congress at 
almost every stopping-place. In October the southern 
States began to reject, one after another, the Fourteenth 
Amendment. In December Congress came together 
triumphant and ready to push its triumph. The next 
House had been elected, and was to contain as huge a 
Republican majority as the present House. It now only 
remained to formulate the means by which the southern 
States were to be forced to accept the Amendment. 

131. Reconstruction by Congress (1867-1870). 

A caucus of Republican members framed a programme, 
and Congress carried it out with a high hand over what- 
Acts to curb ^^cr vctoes Mr. Johnson ventured to inter- 
the President, pose. It was provided that Congress should 
convene on the 4th of March, instead of in December, 
in order to deprive the President of the opportunity for 



1S67-1S70.] Reconstruction by Congress. 267 

the exercise of authority afforded by the long Congres- 
sional recess ; the rules were strengthened which were 
to prevent southern members from getting their names 
upon the roll at the organization of the new Congress ; an 
Act was passed, — known as the Tenure of Office Act, — 
making the President's power of removal from office, as 
well as his power of appointment, subject to the approval 
of the Senate; and a rider to the Appropriation Bill made 
General Grant, already in charge of the whole military 
force of the government, practically independent of the 
President in his command. Universal suffrage was estab- 
lished in the District of Columbia and in the Territories. 
Nebraska was admitted to the Union, March i, 1867. Ne- 
vada had been added to the list of States, October 31, 1864. 
These measures were but to establish the authority and 
The Recon- Prestige of the majority. They simply cleared 
struction Act. the Way for the great Reconstruction Act 
which became law March 2, 1867. On March 4 the 
new Congress convened : before the end of the month it 
had passed a supplementary Act which completed this 
extraordinary legislation ; and the process of disciplinary 
and compulsory reconstruction went forward at once. 

The southern States, with the exception of Tennessee, 

which had already been admitted to representation, were 

to be grouped in five military districts, which were to be 

put under the command of generals of the 

e process. ^^^^, appointed by the President. These mili- 
tary commanders were themselves to conduct the process 
of reconstruction. They v/ere to enroll in each State, 
upon oath, all the male citizens of one year's residence 
not disqualified to vote by reason of felony or excluded 
under the terms of the proposed Fourteenth Amendment; 
and they were then to hold an election in each State for 
delegates to a state convention, in which only registered 
voters should be permitted to vote or to stand as candi- 



268 Rehabilitation of the Union. [§ 131. 

dates, the number of delegates to be chosen being appor- 
tioned according to the registered vote in each voting 
district. These conventions were to be directed to frame 
constitutions extending the franchise to all classes of citi- 
zens who had been permitted to vote for delegates; the 
constitutions so framed were to be submitted to the same 
body of voters for ratification, and, if adopted, were to be 
sent to Congress, through the President, for its approval. 
When its constitution should have been approved by- 
Congress, each of the reconstructed States was to be re- 
admitted to representation so soon as its new legislature 
had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. Meanwhile its 
government was to be deemed " provisional only, and in 
all respects subject to the paramount authority of the 
United States at any time to abolish, control, or super- 
sede the same." Such was the policy of " Thorough " 
to which Congress had made up its mind. 

Its practical operation was of course revolutionary in 
its effects upon the southern governments. The most 
influential white men were excluded from voting for the 
delegates who were to compose the constitutional con- 
ventions, while the negroes were all admitted to enrol- 
ment. Unscrupulous adventurers appeared, 
bag" gov- to act as the leaders of the inexperienced 
ernments. blacks in taking possession, first of the con- 
ventions, and afterwards of the state governments ; and 
in the States where the negroes were most numerous, or 
their leaders most shrewd and unprincipled, an extraor- 
dinary carnival of public crime set in under the forms 
of law. Negro majorities gained complete control of 
the state governments, or, rather, negroes constituted the 
legislative majorities and submitted to the unrestrained 
authority of small and masterful groups of white men 
whom the instinct of plunder had drawn from the North. 
Taxes were multiplied, whose proceeds went for the most 



1867-1870.] Reconstruction by Congress. 269 

part into the pockets of these fellows and their confed« 
erates among the negroes. Enormous masses of debt 
were piled up, by processes both legal and fraudulent, 
and most of the money borrowed reached the sam& 
destination. In several of the States it is true that after 
the conventions had acted, the white vote was strong 
enough to control, when united; and in these reconstruc- 
tion, when completed, reinstated the whites in power 
almost at once. But it was in these States in 
tion com- Several cases that the process of reconstruc- 
pieted. ^Jqj^ ^g^g longest delayed, just because the 

white voters could resist the more obnoxious measures 
of the conventions; and in the mean time there was mili- 
tary rule. By the end of June, 1868, provision had been 
made for the readmission of Arkansas, the two Carolinas, 
Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana to represen- 
tation in Congress. Reconstruction was delayed in 
Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas because of the impossi- 
bility of securing popular majorities for the constitutions 
framed by the reconstructing conventions, and Georgia 
was again held off from representation for a time because 
her laws had declared negroes ineligible to hold office. 
It was not until January 30, 1871, therefore, that all of 
the States were once more represented in Congress. 

Meantime, however, a sufficient number of ratifications 
had been obtained for the Fourteenth Amendment; and 
on the 28th of July, 1868, it was finally proclaimed part of 
the fundamental law. A Fifteenth Amendment, moreover, 
Fifteenth had been added. February 26, 1869, Congress 
Amendment. j,ad pioposed an amendment specifically for- 
bidding either the United States or any State to deny or 
abridge the right of citizens of the United States to vote 
" on account of race, color, or previous condition of servi- 
tude;" and it was agreed to make it a further condition 
precedent to the admission of Virginia, Georgia, Missis- 



2/0 Rehabilitation of the Union. [§§ 131-133. 

sippi, and Texas, belated in their reconstruction, that their 
legislatures should ratify this, as well as the Fourteenth 
Amendment. It was adopted by the necessary number of 
States, and finally declared in force March 30, 1870. 

132. Impeachment of the President (1868). 

The Congressional policy of " Thorough " had not been 
carried through without forcing to an issue of direct 
^ . . hostility the differences between Congress and 

Collision ^ . , T , ,_,, T-» • 1 1 1 

with the President Johnson. The President s repeated 
President. yetoes of its most important measures, his 
open utterance of the most bitter contempt for it, his 
belligerent condemnation upon every ground of its policy 
of reconstruction, had rendered Congress as intemperate 
and aggressive as Mr. Johnson himself ; and at last the 
unedifying contest was pushed to the utmost limit. The 
Tenure of Office Act of March, 1867, had sought to 
deprive the President of the power of removing even 
cabinet officers without the approval of the Senate. In 
August, during the Congressional recess, Mr. Johnson 
Stanton demanded the resignation of Edwin M. Stan- 

episode, ton, the Secretary of War, whom he had re- 
tained in office along with the other members of Mr. 
Lincoln's cabinet. Mr. Stanton refused to resign, and 
the President suspended him from office, as the terms of 
the Act permitted him to do. But when Congress re- 
assembled, the Senate refused to sanction the removal. 
Mr. Johnson thereupon resolved to ignore the Tenure of 
Office Act, which seemed to him a palpable invasion of 
his constitutional privileges, and force Congress to an 
issue. Again he removed Stanton ; again Stanton refused 
to quit his office, appealing to the House for protection. 
On February 24, 1868, the House resolved to impeach the 
President for high crimes and misdemeanors. The trial 
was begun in the Senate on the 5th of March. A vote 



i868.] Impeachment of the President. 271 

was reached on several of the articles of impeachment 
on May 16, and the vote stood, thirty-five for conviction, 
Impeach- nineteen for acquittal. Seven Republican sen- 
"^^"*' ators had voted with the twelve Democrats, 

and the two-thirds majority necessary for conviction could 
not be secured. A verdict of acquittal was entered. The 
Secretary of War resigned his office. The President had 
won the fight against the obnoxious Act. But he had 
hardly won it with dignity ; for while the trial was ac- 
tually in progress he had gone about the country, as be- 
fore, pouring out passionate speeches against Congress. 

133. Presidential Campaign of 1868. 

Mr. Johnson was a Democrat, and the views which he 
had so passionately striven for in the matter of the recon- 
struction of the southern States were the views of the 
Democratic party. He had not won the confidence of 
the Democrats, however, by earning the hostility of the 
Republicans. So far as the presidency was concerned, 
he was, it turned out, as impossible a candidate for either 
party as Mr. Tyler had been. The Republican 

Nominations. ... , . i . , , • r^^ • 

nomniatmg convention, which met in Chicago 
on the 2oth of May, 1868, just four days after the failure 
of the impeachment trial, unanimously and with genuine 
enthusiasm named General Grant for the presidency, 
trusting him as a faithful officer and no politician. The 
Democrats, who met in New York on the 4th of July, 
nominated Horatio Seymour of New York. Issue was 
squarely joined in the platforms upon the policy of re- 
construction. But the result was not doubtful. Three of 
the southern States were shut out from taking 
part in the election because not yet recon- 
structed, and most of the rest were in possession of 
negro majorities ; while most of the northern States were 
of a mind to support Congress in its policy of " Thorough °^ 



2/2 Rehabilitation of the Union. [§§ 153, 134. 

towards the South. Two hundred and fourteen electoral 
votes were cast for the Republican candidates, eighty for 
the Democratic; though the aggregate popular majority 
of the Republicans was but little more than three hun- 
dred thousand in a total vote of nearly six millions. 

The four months which remained to Mr. Johnson as 
President passed quickly away, and on the 4th of March, 
1869, General Grant assumed the responsibilities of suc- 
cessor to the stormy Tennesseean. Mr. Johnson's four 
years of office had certainly been among the most tem- 
pestuous and extraordinary in the history of the country, 
their legislative record crowded with perplexities for the 
constitutional lawyer and the judicious historian alike. 
One event of no little significance had marked the 
foreign relations of the government. In 1862 France 
Th» French ^^"^ Undertaken to interfere in the affairs of 
in -Mexico. the distracted Mexican Republic by setting up 
a throne there for the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, 
— an amiable and enlightened prince who deserved a 
function worthier of his powers. French troops estab- 
lished and sought to maintain the monarchy in the in- 
terest of the clerical and landed classes of Mexico. But 
the United States viewed the movement with hostility from 
the first ; and so soon as the civil war was over, added 
to protests a significant concentration of troops upon the 
Mexican border. The French thereupon withdrew. But 
Maximilian thought it his duty to remain, — only to fall 
into the hands of ruthless opponents, and meet his death, 
by condemnation of a military commission, June 19, 1867. 
The Monroe doctrine had been successfully asserted, with 
truly tragical consequences. 

The year 1867 saw a still further addition of territory to 
the United States by the purchase of Alaska 

Alaska 

from the Russian government for a little more 
than seven million dollars. 



1868-1876.] Restoration 0/ Nonnal Conditions, 273 



CHAPTER XII. 
RETUKN TO NORMAL CONDITIONS (1870-1876). 

134. Restoration of Normal Conditions. 

The year 1876 marked not only a point of national 
sentiment, in the completion of one hundred years of in- 
dependence, but also a real turning-point in 

new era. ^^ history of the country. Normal conditions 
of government and of economic and intellectual life were 
at length restored. The period of reconstruction was 
past; Congress had ceased to exercise extra-constitu- 
tional powers ; natural legal conditions once more pre- 
vailed. Negro rule under unscrupulous adventurers had 
been finally put an end to in the South, and the natural, 
inevitable ascendency of the whites, the responsible 
class, established. Something like the normal balance 
of national parties also had been restored; votes were 
beginning to lose their reminiscence of the war, and to 
become regardful first of all of questions of peace. Eco- 
nomic forces, too, recovering from the past, were gathering 
head for the future. The nation was made to reahze this 
when it took stock of its resources at the great Centen^ 
nial Exposition in Philadelphia. At last the country was 
homogeneous, and had subordinated every other sentiment 
to that of hope. 

General Grant remained President for two terms, and 
the eight years of his incumbency were years at once of 
consummation and of recuperation, during which the Re- 
publican party completed its policy of reconstruction. 



274 Rehabilitation of the Union. [§§ 134, 135. 

and the country pulled itself together for the new and 
better career that was before it. Congress hastened, after 
the passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend- 
ments, to support them by penal legislation. May 31, 
1870, and April 20, 1871, laws were enacted, popularly 
known as the " Force Bills," which denounced fine and 
imprisonment against all hindrances or interferences, 
either attempted or accomplished, in restraint of the ex- 
ercise of the franchise by the negroes, or the counting of 
the votes cast by them ; and the courts of the United 
States were given exclusive cognizance of all offences 
under these Acts. There was unquestionably a deliberate 
Ku-Kiux 3.nd more or less concerted effort made by the 
movement. whites of the South to shut the negro out by 
some means from an effectual use of his vote, and some- 
times this effort took the most flagrant forms of violence. 
Presently, however, its more overt and violent features 
disappeared, and in the spring of 1872 Congress suffered 
some of the harsher portions of the force legislation 
of the previous year to lapse. May 22, 1872, it even 
passed a General Amnesty Act, which relieved of their 
Amnesty political disabilities most of those persons in 
■^*^'- the South who had been excluded from politi- 

cal privileges by previous legislation, excepting only those 
who had served the Confederacy after having been offi- 
cers in the judicial, military, or naval service of the 
United States, or officials in the higher grades of ad- 
ministrative and political function. 

The Supreme Court, moreover, began to throw its 

weight of authority decisively on the side of a con- 

, servative construction of the legal changes 

Influence of , . , . 

the Supreme Wrought by war, reconstruction, and constitu- 
Court. tional amendment. While it sustained the 

political authority of Congress, in the matter even of 
its extreme policy of reconstruction, in Texas vs. White^ 



1870-1876.] Restoration of Normal Conditions. 275 

holding that the law-making power could mend as 
it chose the broken relations of the southern States 
to the Union, it maintained, even in that case, that the 
States retained their statehood intact ; and when it came 
in the so-called " Slaughter-House Cases " (1873), to in- 
terpret the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the 
Constitution, it pronounced the powers of the southern 
States unimpaired, declaring that their control over the 
privileges of their citizens was in no wise changed by the 
constitutional provisions which had placed the special 
privileges of citizens of the United States under the pro- 
tection of the federal government. In subsequent cases 
it went even farther in recalling Congress to the field of 
the Constitution. 

135. Election Troubles in the South (1872-1876). 
Election troubles were of constant recurrence in 
those southern States in which the negroes were most 
numerous or most thoroughly organized under their 
Federal white leaders, and the federal government 

intervention, ^^s repeatedly called upon to exercise the 
extraordinary powers which recent legislation had put 
into its hands. It would be very difficult to say with 
which party to these contests full legal right rested. On 
the one hand, the negro managers were in possession of 
the electoral machinery, were backed by the federal 
supervisors, marshals, and deputy-marshals whom Con- 
gress had authorized to superintend the voting, for the 
protection of the negroes, and were naturally bold to use 
such a situation for their own advantage. Their op- 
ponents, on the other hand, were able oftentimes, when 
they could not control the polls, to keep the negroes 
away from them by persuasion, reward, intimidation, or 
actual violence. In several of the States " Returning 
Boards " had been created by law to make final canvass 



2/6 Rehab ilitati 071 of the Union. [§§ 135, 1361 

of the results of all state or federal elections, and even 
judicial determination of their validity. The control of 
" Returning thesc boards became, of course, an advantage 
Boards." Qf ^j-jg greatest strategic importance to the 
contending parties. In Louisiana, in the autumn of 1872, 
rival Returning Boards, both irregularly constituted, but 
both claiming full official authority, certified, the one a 
Democratic, the other a Republican, majority in the 
choice of presidential electors and state officers. Two 
rival governments were set up. Federal troops inter- 
vened in support of the Republican governor : 

Intervention i i i , . r 

of federal and although a subsequent compromise, ef- 
troops. fected under Congressional direction, gave a 

majority of the House of Representatives of the state 
legislature to the Governor's opponents, he was himself 
left in office and authority. In 1874 and 1875 similar 
electoral difficulties led to calls for federal troops from 
Republican officials about to be ousted in Arkansas and 
Mississippi ; but no troops were sent. The climax ot 
the trouble was to come in connection with the presi- 
dential election of 1876. 

General Grant was careful to justify his course in 
directing the interference of federal troops in the con- 
The Presi- tested election troubles in Louisiana by an ap- 
dent's excuse, pg^j ^-q ^he "guarantee clause" of the Consti- 
tution, under which the United States guarantees to every 
State a republican form of government, and protection 
against domestic violence. But he declared that while 
he felt bound to intervene, he found it an " exceedingly 
unpalatable" duty; and when calls for troops came later 
from other States, he replied, with evident impatience, 
that the whole public was " tired out with these annual 
autumnal outbreaks in the South," and that the great 
majority were " ready now to condemn any interference 
on the part of the government." He had never shown 



1872-1S76.] Election Troiibles in the Sonth. 277 

any vindictive feeling towards the South, and there can 
he no doubt that in directing federal troops to interfere 
to cut the puzzling knots of southern election snarls, he 
acted with the same simple sense of duty towards the 
laws that had characterized his soldier predecessors, 
Jackson and Taylor. 

136. Executive Demoralization (1869-1877). 

During the first term of his presidency, this soldierly 
simplicity and directness served the purposes of govern- 
ment sufficiently well, for the tasks of the moment were 
not those of ordinary civil administration, in which he 
had had no experience. The President, too, showed a 
sincere desire to keep the public service pure and effi- 
cient. March 3, 1871, Congress, in tardy response to a 
healthful movement of public opinion out of doors, passed 
an Act which authorized the President to frame and ad- 
minister through a commission such rules as he thought 
The civil best for the regulation of admissions to the 
service. qXm'A service ; and the measure met with 

General Grant's prompt and hearty approval. He ap- 
pointed leading friends of the reform upon the commis- 
sion, and for three years, after January i, 1872, notwith- 
standing the opposition of the politicians, a system of 
competitive examinations for appointments to office was 
maintained by the President. In December, 1874, Con- 
gress refused any longer to vote money to sustain the 
work of the commission. 

Despite his honorable intentions, however. General 
Grant did not prove fortunate in his selection of coun- 
Officiai mal- sellors and subordinates. He found that 
feasance. choosing political advisers on the nomination 
of politicians was quite different from promoting tested 
officers in the army ; and when his work was over, he 
confessed, with characteristic simplicity and frankness. 



2/8 Rehabilitation of the Union. [§§ 136, 137. 

that he had been deceived and had failed. In 1875 it 
was found that there was concerted action in the West 
between distillers and federal officials to defraud the 
government of large amounts in respect of the internal 
revenue tax on distilled spirits. The Secretary of War, 
W. W. Belknap, was impeached for accepting bribes in 
dispensing the patronage of his department, and resigned 
his office to escape condemnation. During the whole of 
General Grant's second term of office a profound demor- 
alization pervaded the administration. Inefficiency and 
fraud were suspected even where they did not exist. 

The soldier President showed no great wisdom, either, 
in such features of foreign policy as he sought to origin- 
^ ^ . ate. It was his favorite idea that San Domin- 

oan Domingo. ,, . . . . ,„ ,,. ., _. 

go (the " Africanized republic of the Ostend 
Manifesto) ought to be annexed to the United States, 
because it might, in case of war, be used by a hostile 
power as a militar})^ rendevous at our very doors ; and he 
yielded very reluctantly, though gracefully enough, to the 
opposition which made the realization of the plan impos- 
sible. Several serviceable treaties, however, marked the 
period of his incumbency. Of these the most worthy of 
Treaty of mention was the Treaty of Washington, con- 
Washington, eluded with Great Britain, May 8, 1871. This 
treaty provided for a clearer definition of the northwest- 
ern boundary, a portion of which had been too vaguely 
determined by the treaty of 1847; for the settlement 
of certain questions touching alleged interferences with 
American fishermen in Canadian waters ; and for the 
arbitration of claims made by the United States against 
Great Britain on account of the fitting out in British 
ports of certain confederate vessels of war which had 
wrought havoc among the northern shipping. These 
last were called the " ' Alabama ' Claims," because they 
chiefly concerned the equipment in England of the con- 



1871-1S75] Public Scandals. 279 

federate cruiser " Alabama." An amicable settlement 
of all the questions covered by the treaty was effected. 
In September, 1872, arbitrators appointed, under the 
terms of the treaty, by Brazil, Italy, Switzerland, Great 
Britain, and the United States, awarded to the United 
States fifteen million dollars in damages on account of 
the " ' Alabama ' Claims." 

137. Legislative Scandals (1872-1873). 

Congress, too, as well as the administration, had 
suffered a certain serious degree of demoralization, in 
consequence, no doubt, of the prolonged and unobstructed 
domination of a triumphant party majority. In 1869 
both the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railways had 
been completed across the continent, by aid of enormous 
government grants. A corporation, known as " The 
Credit Credit Mobilicr," chartered by the legislature 

Mobiher. q£ Pennsylvania, had taken charge of the 
construction of the Union Pacific and of its interests in 
the money market ; and in 1872 grave scandals began to 
come to light concerning its operations. It was pub- 
licly alleged that the Vice-President (Mr. Colfax), the 
Vice-President elect (Mr. Henry Wilson), the Secretary 
of the Treasury, the Speaker of the House of Represen- 
tatives, and a number of senators and representatives 
had been bribed to further the interests of the com- 
pany in Congress. Upon the convening of Congress 
in December, 1872, a committee of investigation was 
appointed in the House, upon the motion of the Speaker. 
Its report, made February 18, 1873, showed clear proof 
of guilt against two members of the House, exonerated 
others on the ground that they had had no knowledge of 
the illegitimate purposes of the operations in which they 
had confessedly taken part, and left resting upon a num- 
ber of others a painful suspicion of disgraceful motiveSj 



28o Rehabilitation of the Union. [§§ 137-139. 

even in the absence of conclusive proof of their guilt. 
The impression made upon the country was that a cor- 
rupt congressional " ring " had been partially unearthed. 
And this unfavorable impression concerning congressional 
motives v^as only heightened by an Act, passed the same 
session, which the pubhc press very bluntly dubbed "the 
" Salary Salary grab." By this Act the compensation 
Grab." ^f senators and representatives was increased, 

and the increase was made to apply retrospectively to the 
salaries of the members of the existing Congress. The 
next session saw this scandalous measure repealed. 

138. Serviceable Legislation (1870-1875). 

For the rest, Congress showed itself capable, during 
these eight years, of some very serviceable legislation, 
though it was not always steadfast in maintaining the 
good it did. It authorized a thorough reform of the 
civil service, as we have seen, in 1871, only to abandon 
it again for the spoils system in 1874. An Act of July 
Natural- I4> i87o> amended the naturalization laws, 
ization. jt admitted to citizenship, besides " free white 

persons,^' "aliens of African nativity and persons of 
African descent." This was a completion of the policy 
of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. It 
also made stringent provision against the fraudulent nat- 
uralization and registration of aliens, appointing federal 
supervisors to enforce its regulations in that regard in 
cities of over twenty thousand inhabitants. January 14, 
1875, ^-n Act became law which provided for the resump- 
tion of specie payments by the government on the ist 
Specie of January, 1 879. Congress had very narrowly 

payments, escaped being deprived by the Supreme Court 
of the power of making its irredeemable paper issues 
legal tender for all debts, as it had done in 1862. A de- 
cision of that court, rendered in December, 1869, pro- 



1870-1875-1 Serviceable Legislation. 281 

nounced such legislation unconstitutional. But the decis- 
ion was agreed to by only a small majority of the justices; 
Legal ten- by the following spring the person7iel of the 
der cases. court had been materially altered by the ap- 
pointment of two new justices ; and in March, 1870, the 
court, thus re-organized, reversed the decision of Decem- 
ber, and affirmed the constitutionality of the legislation 
of 1862. The resumption of specie payments, however, 
was none the less imperatively demanded by the business 
sense of the country. 

139. Reaction against the Republicans (1870-1876). 

General Grant had been elected to his second term of 
office in 1872 without formidable opposition. But there 
Dissatisfied ^ad been signs even then of reaction against 
Republicans, ^j^g Republican policy, and before the end of 
his second term that reaction had gathered very for- 
midable head indeed, having swept away the Republican 
majority in the House of Representatives and brought 
on a contested presidential election. There had been an 
influential element in the Republican party from the first 
which, although it had supported the party cordially 
for the sake of the Union, had given its support only 
provisionally, with a potential, if not an actual, indepen- 
dence of judgment. There was another element, too, of 
" War Democrats," whose allegiance was still looser, still 
more openly conditional. These elements, as well as 
a great many earnest, conservative men who accounted 
themselves without qualification staunch Republicans, 
were very soon seriously alienated from the party by its 
extreme measures of coercion in the South in support 
of the constitutional amendments, its constant military 
interference there, in despite of the principle of local self- 
government, the arrogant temper af mastery with which 
it insisted upon its aggressive policy, and the apparent 



282 Rehabilitation of the Union. [§§ 139, 140. 

indifference with which it viewed the administrative 
demoralization which so soon became manifest under 
General Grant. 

So early as 1870 these forces of reaction had produced 
a " Liberal Republican " party in Missouri, which, by 
" Liberal Combining with the Democrats, presently 
Republicans " ga^jned Complete control of the government of 
that State. By 1872 this "liberal republican" movement 
had greatly spread, assuming even national importance. 
In May, 1872, a general mass meeting of the adherents 
of the new party gathered in Cincinnati, and, after adopt- 
ing a thoroughly Democratic platform, was led by a 
singular combination of influences to nominate for the 
presidency Mr. Horace Greeley, the able, erratic, stridently 
Republican editor of the New York "Tribune;" and for 
the vice-presidency Mr. B. Gratz Brown, the Liberal 
Repubhcan leader of Missouri. The Democratic nom- 
inating convention accepted both the j^latform and the 
candidates of this meeting. But no Democrat could vote 
with real heartiness for the ticket. While the Republi- 
cans gained 600,000 votes over 1868, the Democratic vote 
increased only 130,000 ; and General Grant, who had been 
renominated by the unanimous choice of his party, was 
made President again. The most substantial result of 
the reaction was a perceptible increase in the opposition 
vote in Congress. 

It was significant of the clearing away of the war 
influences that parties now began to form which mani- 
fested no great interest in reconstruction ques- 

New parties. ^. _ ^- r ^^ t i « 

tions. 1872 saw conventions of a "Labor 
party and of a " Prohibitionist " party, which framed 
platforms and nominated candidates for the presidency 
and the vice-presidency- In 1873 and 1874 there emerged 
in the West an association of " Patrons of Husbandry," 
more generally known as " Grangers," which imperatively 



1S70-1S76.] Reaction against the Republicans, 283 

thrust forward the interests of the farmer in the poKtics 
of several of the western States, and induced there con- 
siderable legislative interference with railway transporta- 
tion. 

Although it miscarried in its attempts against the 
Repubhcan strength in 1872, the opposition movement 
steadily gathered head. The corruption of the adminis- 
tration was brought more and more painfully to light ; 
the financial distress of 1873 seemed to many who suf- 
ered from it to be connected in some way with the finan- 
cial policy of the dominant party ; influences large and 
Elections of Small set against the RepubUcans ; and in the 
1874 and 1875. gj^^^lQj^g of 1874 and 1875 the Democrats, as 

it were suddenly and by surprise, carried their state tickets 
in many northern States, and even elected their candi- 
date for governor in Massachusetts. In the Congres- 
sional elections, moreover, they were overwhelmingly suc- 
cessful, supplanting a Republican majority of almost one 
hundred in the House of Representatives by a Demo- 
cratic majority almost as large. In the slowly changing 
Senate, however, the Democratic vote was still less than 
one-third. Before the presidential election of 1876 this 
" tidal wave " of success was running much less strongly, 
but it had by no means subsided. 

140. Contested Election of 1876-1877. 

The national Democratic convention of 1876 nominated 
for the presidency Samuel J. Tilden of New York, a man 
Popular who had proved both his ability and his integ- 

election. ^\^^ \^ ^j^g highest administrative offices of his 

State. The Republican convention named Rutherford B. 
Hayes of Ohio. Once more Democratic majorities seemed 
to sweep the country ; but the existence of three dual state 
governments in the South threw the whole result into 
grave doubt, and produced one of the most extraordi- 



284 Rehabilitation of the Union. t§ Mo- 

nary situations in the history of the country. In Louisi- 
ana the official Returning Board, through whose hands 
the votes of every voting precinct in the State 
had to pass, was under the absolute control 
of W. P. Kellogg, the Republican governor who had 
been recognized by the federal government in 1872 and 
allowed to use federal troops in 1874. The Returning 
Board, in 1876, after refusing to comply with the law in 
several respects, declared the R.epublican presidential 
electors chosen, and the governor signed their certificates. 
Mr. Nichols, however, the Democratic candidate, claimed 
to have been elected governor, and gave certificates to 
the Democratic electors. Two sets of votes, therefore, 
were sent to Congress from Louisiana. There had been 
similar double returns from Louisiana in 1872, and the 
^, ., houses had then refused to count the elec- 

Flonda. 

toral vote of that State at all. In Florida 
the Returning Board contained but one Democrat, the 
Attorney-General, and its majority, exercising judicial pre- 
rogatives which the supreme court of the State had for- 
bidden them to assume, declared the Republican electors 
chosen. The Attorney-General, the Democratic member 
of the board, gave certificates to the Democratic elec- 
tors. As in Louisiana, so here, the governor of the State 
was a Republican, and signed the certificates of the 
South Car- Republican electors. In South Carolina, too, 
ohna. as jj^ Louisiana, there were two governors and 

two legislatures, each claiming to have been elected and 
to constitute the only legitimate government of the State. 
The Republican government was protected and sup- 
ported in effecting its organization by federal troops, 
who had also in many places guarded the polls at the 
elections, where, the Democrats claimed, they had made a 
free election impossible. Just as in Louisiana, therefore, 
each set of electors received their certificates of elec- 



1876,1877] Contested Election. 28^ 

tion, the one from the Republican governor, in possession 
of office, the other from the Democratic governor, de- 
Oregon, manding possession of office. There was a 
complication, besides, in Oregon. There the 
RepubHcan electors had secured a majority ; but one of 
them was thought to be disqualified under the law from 
serving in the capacity of presidential elector, and the 
governor gave a certificate to the Democratic elector 
who had received the highest number of votes. The 
Secretary of State, however, the official canvassing 
officer of the State, gave certificates to all three of the 
Republican electors. If these disputed votes should all 
be given to the Republican electors, the Republican can- 
didates for the presidency and vice-presidency would be 
chosen by an electoral majority of one ; but if any one of 
them should be lost to the Republicans, they would lose 
the election also. 

The House of Representatives v/as Democratic, the 
Senate RepubHcan ; and it was impossible that the two 
Houses should agree with reference to the nice questions 
which would arise in counting the votes from the States 
from which there were known to be double returns. In 
Electoral January, 1877, therefore, an Electoral Com- 
Commission. ^lission was Created by Congress, to consist 
of five members chosen by the Senate, five members 
chosen by the House of Representatives, and five Jus- 
tices of the Supreme Court, in the hope that the puzzHng 
and intricate questions involved might be decided with 
judicial impartiality. Unhappily, however, every vote ^ 
of the Commission was a vote upon partisan lines. It 
contained eight RepubHcan and seven Democratic mem- 
bers, and in each case all disputed questions were de- 
cided in favor of the Republicans by a vote of eight to 
seven. The process of decision was very slow, alid, of 
course, generated the most profound excitement. Not 



286 Rehabilitation of the Union. [§§ 140, 141. 

until the second day of March, — two days before the date 
set by the Constitution for the inauguration of the new 
President, — was the counting finished, and the result of- 
ficially determined in the joint session of the houses. 
The feeling was universal that, leaving aside all ques- 
tions of fraud in the elections, — which affected both par- 
ties almost, equally, — the whole affair threw profound 
discredit upon those concerned. A perilous conflict had 
no doubt been avoided ; but it had proved impossible to 
get a commission from Senate, House, and Judiciary in 
which either the majority or the minority would vote 
upon the legal merits of the cases presented. Even 
members of the Supreme Court had voted as partisans. 

141. Tlie Centennial Year. 

Soon after his inauguration, President Hayes very 
wisely ordered the withdrawal of the federal troops from 
Troops the South ; and the Republican governments 

withdrawn. Qf South Carolina and Louisiana, — upon whose 
de facto authority his election had turned, — were quietly 
superseded by the Democratic governments which had 
all along claimed the right to occupy their places. In 
Florida, too, decisions of the courts effected the same 
result. The supremacy of the white people was hence- 
forth assured in the administration of the southern 
States. 

May 10, 1876, had witnessed the opening of an Inter- 
national Industrial Exhibition at Philadelphia, which had 
Centennial been arranged in celebration of the centennial 
Exhibition, anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration 
of Independence. It was a fit symbol and assurance of 
the settled peace and prosperity which were in store for 
the country in the future. All the great commercial and 
industrial nations were represented in its exhibits, among 
the rest, of course, England, whose defeat the Exhibition 



1876.] The Centeitnial Year, 287 

was planned to celebrate. Her presence made it also a 
festival of reconciliation. It spoke of peace and good- 
will with all the world. It surely is not fanciful to regard 
it, besides, as a type and figure of the reconstruction and 
regeneration of the nation. The Union was now restored, 
not only to strength, but also to normal conditions of 
government. National parties once more showed a salu- 
tary balance of forces which promised to make sober 
debate the arbiter of future pohcies. It showed the eco- 
nomic resources of the South freed, like those of the 
North, for a rapid and unembarrassed development. 
The national spirit was aroused, and conscious now at 
last of its strength. The stage was cleared for the crea- 
tion of a new nation. 



VI. 
THE NEW UNITED STATES 

(1877-1909). 

142. Keferences. 

Bibliographies. — The Critical Essays on Authorities at the close 
of volumes xxiii., xxiv., and xxv. of The American Nation, edited 
by A. B. Hart (1907) ; R. C. Ringwalt's Briefs on Public Questions 
(1905); valuable special bibliographies, prepared by A. P. C. Griffin, 
chief bibliographer of the Library of Congress, a list of which is 
obtainable upon application. 

General Accounts. — In the preparation of the following chap- 
ters considerable use was made of volumes xxiii., xxiv., and xxv. 
of The American Nation, by E. E. Sparks, D. R. Dewe)'^, and J. H. 
Latane, respectively (1907) ; also of Harry Thurston Peck's Twenty 
Years of the Republic, 1S85-1905 (1906'), and the Cambridge Modern 
History, volume vii. See also E. Benjamin Andrews' The United 
States in Our Own Times, 1 870-1903 (2 vols. 1903). Woodrow Wil- 
son's History of the American People also comes down to 1902. 

Special "Works. — C. D. Wright's Industrial Evolution of the 
United States (1903) ; E. L. Bogart's Economic History of the United 
States (1908); E. R. Johnson's American Railway Transportation 
(190-:;) ; B. H. Myer's Railway Legislation in the United States 
(1903); J. W. Jenks' Trust Problem (1905); Ida M. Tarbell's The 
History of the Standard Oil Company (2 vols. 1904) ; R. T. Ely's 
The Labor Movement in America (1902); Edwa,rd Stanwood's Ameri- 
can Tariff Controversies in the Nineteenth Century (2 vols. 1903) ; 
C. R. B'ish's The Civil Service and the Patronage (1905) ; J. B. 
Moore's Digest of International Law (1906) (look up in index, 
volume viii., such topics as Monroe Doctrine, Intervention, Cuba, 
Panama, etc.); E. J. Benton's International Law and Diplomacy of 
the Spanish-American War (1908) ; J. D. Long's The New American 
Navy (1903) ; A. C. Coolidge's The United States as a World Power 
(1908); W. F. Willoughby's Territories and Dependencies of the 
United States (American State Series, 1905); L. Rowe's The United 
States and Porto Rico (1904) ; James Leroy's Philippine Life in Town 



1877-1897-] The Period 1877 to 1897. 289 

and Country (1905); H. P. Willis' Our Philippine Problem (1905); 
W. F. Johnson's Four Centuries of the Panama Canal (1906) ; L. M. 
Keasby's The Nicaraguan Canal and the Monroe Doctrine (1896); 
C. A. Conant's The United States in the Orient (1900) ; Edward Stan- 
wood's James Gillespie Blaine (American Statesman Series, 1905); 
Theodore Burton's John Sherman (American Statesman Series, 1906); 
John Sherman's Recollections of Forty Years (2 vols. 1897) ; G. F. 
Hoar's Autobiography of Seventy Years (2 vols. 1903); J. L. Whittle's 
Grover Cleveland (1S96); G. F. Parker's Writings and Speeches of 
Grover Cleveland (1892); Grover Cleveland's Presidential Problems 
(1904); Theodore Roosevelt's American Ideals (1904) ; Richardson's 
Messages of the Presidents (vols, vii.-x., and supplemental volumes). 



CHAPTER XIII. 

USTDUSTEIAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGE 
(1877-1897). 

143. Tlie Period 1877 to 1897. 

The two most notable characteristics of the period 
stretching from 1877 to 1897 are, first, the rise of a new 
and much more complicated economic organization of 
society, and, secondly, the unpreparedness of the Ameri- 
can people to deal with the problems presented by this 
development, — a fact due partly to the traditional charac-, 
ter of party alignment, partly to the inadequacy of gov- 
ernmental principles and machinery, and partly to the 
rapidity of social and industrial change, which far out- 
stripped all possibility of a thoroughgoing comprehension 
of its elements and tendencies. The period opens with a 
population still largely agricultural ; it shows at its close 
A period a population tending increasingly toward the 
of great ^j^ there to be regimented by huge ag2:re- 

economic J ' o y o 00 

change. gatious of Capital to the service of industries 

organized on a national scale. We set out with the indi- 
vidual cultivator of the land as the characteristic figure 

19 



290 The New United States. [§ 143. 

of American economic society ; we wind up with the 
corporation and the labor union occupying the forefront 
of the American industrial stage. It was noted in the 
census report of 1890 that the frontier had disappeared 
from the map of the United States. The fact was sig- 
nificant. Henceforth the trend of American life was to 
be distinctly away from the simple conditions that char- 
acterized newly settled regions. 

The transformation thus indicated took its rise from 
the commercial isolation of the United States during the 
Civil War, partly deliberate and partly accidental ; it 
was accelerated by the panic of 1873, the plain hint of 
which to individual investors was to organize in corpora- 
tions of limited Hability ; but it was furthered much more 
conspicuously by the panic of 1893 and its ensuing stress, 
the one compelling lesson of which was the neces- 
sity, in view of new conditions obtaining abroad, of de- 
veloping an industry capable of absorbing the output of 
our overgrown agriculture. To have met this problem, 
and consequently to have won our industrial independ- 
ence of Europe, is the great achievement of the two 
decades which we shall review in this chapter. The 
achievement mentioned, however, bears its stamp as such 
only in its economic phase. PoHtically, socially, and 
„ , ^ . , even morally, it took place at immense cost. 
issues, rise The individual, in merging himself with a cor- 

new. poration or labor union, seemed oftentimes to 

abdicate his moral responsibility as a citizen. At the 
same time the old political watchwords staled because of 
their inappropriateness to the new issues, while the fos- 
silization of ancient affiliations thwarted the adaptation 
of the political machinery at hand to the new tasks with 
which society found itself confronted. 

Politically, therefore, the period lying between 1877 and 
1897 is one of fluctuation on the part of the voter and 



1877-1897.] The Period 1877 to 1897. 291 

vacillation on the part of the leader. It is a period of 
equivocal platforms and, with the conspicuous exception 
of Mr. Cleveland in his two latter campaigns, of merely 
*' available" candidates. In everyone of the presidential 
elections, five in all, which occur during this period, the 
party in power meets defeat, while the fluctuations in 
State and Congressional elections are equally pronounced. 
The people found the old-line parties, the opposition of 
Political which rested upon the vanishing issues be- 
Indvaci?" tween North and South, hesitant and un- 
lation. satisfactory exponents of new antagonisms 

traversing all sections and answering often much more 
nearly to a cleavage of classes than of geographical re- 
gions. The result was that the diverse interests by which 
the country was coming to be divided became militant on 
their own account, outside of the conventional agencies 
of pubhc opinion. Both parties had long since come to 
be directed by small coteries of professional politicians 
constituting the "machines." What now happened was 
the rise of a well-paid lobby, standing over the machines 
of both parties and ready to use either for the benefit of 
its own employer, that is, to speak generally, capital. 
Rise of new The natural weapon of organized labor, on 
of pubTc ^^ other hand, was the strike, which from 
opinion. 1 886 on bccame an important feature of Amer- 

ican industrial life. Other interests and brands of 
opinion, calculating upon making a widespread popular 
appeal, organized sometimes non-partisan leagues con- 
siderable enough to court the attention of the old-time 
parties, and sometimes third parties. 

The outcome will be displayed in detail in the ensuing 
pages, but briefly it maybe stated as follows: By 1897 
the Republican party in its dual role of defender of the 
gold standard and champion of the protective tariff, had 
become the recognized sponsor of the new order of things, 



292 The New United States. [§§ 143, 144. 

in which aggregated capital appeared the dominant and 
directing force. In this order of things any proposed 
action on the part of the state was subjected invariably 
to the test of its probable effect upon " business," there 
was a general demand for the " business man " in poli- 
tics, and all wisdom was thought to have found its sum- 
mary in the gambling phrase "stand-pat," the idea being 
Business ^^^^ government, having done its utmost to 
supplies the smooth the path of business, should now keep 

dominant ., irr^ri-ii t i 

interest of its hands otf. Of this philosophy, the United 
the period. States Senate was best adapted, both by its 
temper and its methods, to become the effective expo- 
nent, but the courts, too, individualistic as of yore and 
possessed of the power of reviewing legislation, were able 
to lend a hand now and then to the same end. Mean- 
v/hile the Democratic party, given over to financial 
heresies and to schism, had ceased even to offer effec- 
tive opposition to, or heeded criticism of, prevailing 
tendencies. 

144. Reconstruction Undone : The M"ew South. 

The " Undoing of Reconstruction " is the phrase that 
has been fittingly applied to the course that political 
action has taken in the South since 1877. Following his 
withdrawal of the federal troops from Florida, South 
Carolina, and Louisiana in that year, President Hayes 
was forced to engage in a contest with the Democratic 
House of Representatives over a " rider " to the Army 
Appropriation Bill, intended to abolish the federal elec- 
tion machinery in the southern States. He achieved a 
^, TT J - technical victory in the matter of the rider, 

The Undoing . , j . , 

of Recon- but at the same time had to sign the appro- 
struction. priatiou with a proviso attached, prohibiting 
the use of troops by United States marshals. Hence- 
forth the essential equality of the two parties in the na- 



1877-1890.] The New South, 293 

tional government forbade the idea of its meddling with 
elections. In the years between 1877 and 1890, conse- 
quently, the whites of the South, by dint of cajolery and 
ingenious management, were able substantially to elimi- 
nate the negro vote. Thus, in the election of 1888, the 
average vote cast for a member of Congress in five 
southern States was less than one quarter of the votes so 
cast in five northern States. It was in contemplation of 
this situation that in 1890 the Republican party, angered 
by the allegiance between the solid South and the Demo- 
cratic party, brought forward the so-called Lodge " Force 
Bill," looking to the restoration of federal supervision at 
presidential and Congressional elections. The measure 
was defeated, partly through the intervention of northern 
capital, now on its way to investment in large sums in 
the South, and partly through an alliance, now for the 
first time struck but destined later to have grave conse- 
quences, between the southern senators and the Repub- 
lican senators from the silver States of the West. 

Meantime the Supreme Court had continued, in ques- 
tions touching southern interests, to take the narrow 
view of federal power under the new amendments to 
the Constitution, which it had formulated initially in the 
Slaughter-House decision. In 1875 Congress had passed 
the Civil Rights Act, meant to secure for negroes equal 
rights of accommodation with white persons in theatres, 
hotels, and public conveyances. In declaring this Act 
unconstitutional in 1883, the Court limited the power of 
Congress to that of disallowance of discriminatory action 
by the State's own agents, — in other words, made Con- 
gressional action practically gratuitous, since the Court 
already claimed for itself this same power. Somewhat 
earlier, moreover, the Court, in deciding that a State may 
exact a reasonable prerequisite, such as the payment of a 
poll tax, to the right of voting, had imparted a valuable 



294 ^^^^ New United States. [§ 144, 

hint to the South. Warned by the menace of the Lodge 
Force Bill, the southern States began at once, under the 
leadership of Mississippi, to amend their constitutions 
with a view to imparting the safeguard of legality to the 
disfranchisement of the negro. The principal device has 
^, been the erection of a literary qualification for 

The new • r i rr r ■, 

southern the exercise of the sunrage, from the require- 
constitutions. ^^^ts of which the great majority of the white 
voters are exempted either by administration or by quite 
specific description in the law itself. Somewhat recently 
the idea has been broached of enforcing the forfeiture of 
representation prescribed by the second section of the 
Fourteenth Amendment. The southern States would of 
course be the principal sufferers from such action. The 
proposition has, however, been but coldly received, even 
at the North, while in the South, on the other hand, a 
suggestion has been put forth, with some appearance 
at least of confidence, for the repeal of the Fifteenth 
Amendment. 

It is evident, therefore, that a consensus of opinion has 
been steadily developing through the North and South 
upon the issues that formerly divided them. Partly this 
was due to the deliberate efforts of men able to grasp 
Lincoln's idea of a spiritual as well as a physical restora' 
tion of the Union. Partly, however, it has been due to 
more material facts. For throughout the period we are 
reviewing the failure of political reconstruction has been 
matched by a brilliant economic and industrial recou' 
struction of that region. The " Solid South " has been 
The New g'ving place to the " New South " ; the South 
South. of timber production, of coal and iron mining, 

of iron manufactures, of cotton manufactures, of child 
labor, of foreign immigration, — in brief, of capitalistic 
industry. To no small degree the downfall of the Demo- 
cratic party has been due to this transformation of the 



1S77-1S90.] The New South. 295 

South. For while that region has continued to acknowl- 
edge a formal allegiance to the Democratic party on elec- 
tion days, in the intervals between its support has been 
by no means invariably forthcoming to the principles laid 
down in the party platforms. In truth, the day would 
seem to be rapidly approaching when the white electorate 
of the South will deem it safe to divide upon the same 
issues as the rest of the country. 



145. New States: Polygamy: Indian Lands. 

The sectionalism of the North and South tended there- 
fore to disappear, but in its stead that of East and West 
appeared to revive, to display in this period some rather 
acute phases. That this should have been so was due to 
the extreme, not to say heedless, liberality with which 
statehood was extended, about the year 1890, 
to western territories of relatively meagre pop- 
ulation. For statehood meant equal representation in 
the Senate, so that eventually sixteen States, containing 
perhaps a twelfth of the population of the Union, elected 
one third of the Senate. By the " Omnibus Bill " of 
February 22, 1889, the two Dakotas, Washington, and 
Montana became States ; the next year Idaho and Wyo- 
ming were admitted without at all deserving it ; and, in 
1896, Utah. 

The admission of Utah marked the solution of one of 
the most unique problems that ever troubled the Ameri- 
can Congress, that of polygamy in certain of the Terri- 
tories. The Republican platform of i860 called for the 
abolition from the Territories of those " twin relics of 
Congress and barbarism," slavery and polygamy. The Act 
polygamy. of July I, 1862, therefore, provided severe 
penalties for " bigamy " in regions subject to federal 
jurisdiction, but was so laxly drawn and provided such 



296 The New United States, [§ 145. 

inefficient means for its enforcement that only three 
convictions were secured under it in the space of twenty 
years. The more drastic Edmonds Act of 1882 proved 
much more effective ; and during the ensuing five years 
some five hundred exponents of the "Latter Day" idea 
of the family were deprived of the right to vote and the 
right to hold office, besides incurring other penalties. 
Encouraged by these results and a decision of the Su- 
preme Court, Congress in 1882 authorized the President 
to seize and administer the property of the Mormon 
church. The adherents of Mormonism, at last awake to 
the futility of further defiance, now proceeded to draft a 
constitution looking to statehood, in which polygamy was 
penalized by a provision unchangeable save by the con- 
sent of Congress. The obvious invalidity of such an 
arrangement did not go far to persuade outsiders of the 
good faith of those who contrived it, but a declaration by 
a general conference of the Mormon church three years 
later produced a better effect. Early in 1893 President 
Harrison amnestied substantially all persons liable at 
that date to the penalties of the Act of 1882, while some 
months later Congress restored to the Mormon church 
certain properties that had been taken from it under the 
Act of 1887. The constitution under which Utah was 
admitted in 1896 contains a solemn pledge that polygamy 
will never be allowed in that State. Nevertheless, a 
Utah representative in Congress was shown, a few years 
since, to be living in polygamy and was excluded from 
his seat in consequence. 

The erection of the other new commonwealths named 
above had also its special interest, for it called attention 
End of to the fact that the public domain, the exist- 

free lands. ence of which had thus far constituted a deter- 
minative element of our national life of the first rank, both 
politically and economically, was fast melting away, — at 



1890-1907.] New States: Indian Lands. 297 

any rate, the readily cultivable portion of it. Between 
1890 and 1900 private entries for public land numbered 
just one half what they had been the previous decade, — • 
a circumstance which was due to no lack of effective de- 
mand for such lands, as was proved by the dramatic 
events attending the opening up of Oklahoma to settle- 
ment, when fifty thousand persons took out claims in a 
single day. The continued pressure for new lands pro- 
duced also several other noteworthy results in close se- 
quence. One of these was the forfeiture by the Pacific 
railway companies, enforced by President Cleveland, of 
^ome eighty millions of acres, which the government had 
donated them upon conditions with which they had failed 
to comply. Another was the beginning of irrigation on 
a large scale in the West, an idea utilized at that time 
only by private companies, but destined to be taken up 
later by the government as well. Due also to this pres- 
sure was the fact that our Indian policy now entered upon 
its last phase. 

Never were Indian wars more numerous than between 
1870 and 1880 and in the two or three years lying at 
either side of that decade, during which period engage- 
ments between the national troops and Indian warriors 
are to be reckoned actually by the hundreds, the cause 
being the increased desirability of Indian lands. Mean- 
A new In- time, in 1871, the government had begun grad- 
dian policy, ually to abandon its venerable policy of dealing 
with the Indians in a semi-diplomatic way through their 
pauperized tribes, but not till 1887, with the enactment of 
the Dawes Bill, was the new policy really set a-going. 
This measure, by encouraging the Indians to abandon 
their tribes and take allotments of land in severalty, 
achieved two ends. It put the Indian on the way to be- 
coming a citizen, and it made new land available for 
white settlers. The rapid progress of the new policy is 



298 The New United States, [§§ 145, 146. 

sufficiently indicated by the history of Oklahoma, which 
was constituted a Territory in 1889, was admitted as a 
The case of State, after considerable delay due to partisan 
Oklahoma, opposition, in 1902, and received a great acces- 
sion of territory and citizenship, largely Indian, when 
Indian Territory was merged with it in 1907. 

146. Immigration: The Chinese Question. 

Questions of land raise inevitably questions of popula- 
tion and employment. The years from 1877 to 1897 wit- 
nessed a great increase in agricultural production, the 
centre of which, with the extension of the Pacific rail- 
roads, moved rapidly westward. But by far the most 
important and significant development of the period was 
Rise of man- the tremendous growth of manufactures. Be- 
ufactunng. tween i860 and 1890, while population was 
doubling, the capital invested in manufactures increased 
six-fold, and in the ensuing decade again probably trebled. 
The most reliable index of this development is to be 
found in the statistics of our foreign exportations, the 
contribution to which from manufacturing increased 
between 1880 and 1890 nearly three-fold, while that of 
agriculture fell off more than a quarter. Such radical 
economic change had of course a perceptible effect upon 
population itself, — transferring it to new centres, altering 
even its sources. Rural centres declined throughout 
New England, in the Old Northwest, and even in Iowa, 
while the proportion of urban population to the total 
population of the entire country steadily rose from less 
than a fourth in 1880 to more than a third in 1900. 

Here, of course, is a phenomenon of the sort the social 
philosopher delights to ponder upon. A still more serious 
phenomenon attended it, namely, a great change in the 
character of immigration which our newly industrialized 
country began now to attract from abroad. Down to 



1877-1897-] Immigration. 299 

1880 the vast proportion of immigrants to this country 
were from the easily assimilable stock of western Europe, 
A new kind who, upon their arrival here, largely sought the 
of immigrants, land. A quarter of a century later the absorp- 
tive function of land has been taken over by mechanical 
invention and capitalistic industry, and necessarily the 
population that responds to the new lure is of a different 
order. There is no longer any land to seek, and even if 
there were, the poverty-stricken Italians, Hebrews, and 
Slavs, who in 1905 made up three fifths of the immigrant 
arrivals to these shores, are neither disposed nor able to 
make their way to it. 

The general questions raised by the new type of immi- 
gration on a large scale were first raised, and in an ex- 
ceptionally acute form, by Chinese immigration. Chinese 
began coming to this country in considerable numbers 
about the close of the Civil War and were of the greatest 
possible service in completing the great transcontinental 
railways. The Treaty of Washington with China in 
1868 was therefore giving voice to no mere banality in 
recognizing the mutual advantage of this migration. But 
it was also this very fact of the completion of the Pacific 
roads that brought about a great reversal of feeling with 
regard to the Chinese, who now began to make their way 
eastward, where their abhorrent social arrangements and 
filthy habits of living made them local nuisances. The 
event, however, that sealed the fate of Chinese immigra- 
tion was the extensive use made of Chinese laborers by 
„• r,. the railroads to break the strike of 1877. The 

Rise of the _ ' \ 

anti -Chinese agitation for Chinese exclusion began in San 
agi a ion. Francisco under the leadership of Dennis 
Kearney, the " sand lots " orator, who in the manner of 
Cato wound up every harangue with the unvarying re- 
frain, " The Chinese must go." In 1879 Congress passed 
a resolution ordering the President to declare the Treaty 



300 The New United States. [§§ 146, 147. 

of 1868 null and void, but Hayes vetoed it on the ground 
that it entrenched upon his presidential discretion, and 
also because he was loath to abrogate a convention which 
had been entered into with a friendly power in perfect 
good faith on both sides. The way out of the difficulty 
was furnished by the Angell Treaty of 1880, according 
the United States permission to "regulate, limit, or sus- 
pend " the immigration of Chinese laborers. The bill 
passed by Congress early in 1882 '' suspended" such 
immigration for twenty years, but a presidential veto 
brought about a reduction of this term to ten years in the 
measure that was finally enacted. 

The same year, its attention being now upon the immi- 
grant problem, Congress decreed the exclusion of pau- 
pers, criminals, convicts, and insane persons, and imposed 
a poll tax of fifty cents per immigrant. Other acts fol- 
lowed. By the Act of 1885 laborers brought hither under 
contract were barred out. By the Act of 1890 polyga- 
mists, diseased persons, and persons incapable of self- 
„ support, were excluded. By the Geary Act of 

and immi- 1 892 and an Act of 1902 Chinese exclusion was 
gration. renewed and made more stringent under sanc- 

tion of the treaty foisted upon China in 1890. By the Act 
of 1903 the capitation tax upon immigrants was raised to 
two dollars. 

. 147. Labor : Strikes : The Pullman Strike. 

The coming of vast hordes of unskilled laborers to our 
shores proved an early and compelling cause of labor or- 
ganization, though more potent doubtless was the rise of 
aggregated capital. Modern industrial society is a com- 
plex of groups, each with its function to perform, each 
with its interest to pursue, so that, however mutually in- 
dispensable their functions make them, their interests 
make them also, to some degree, mutually antagonistic. 



1873-1882.] Labor: Strikes. 301 

A very simple as well as very ancient antagonism is that 
of employer and employee; much more intricate, and 
The organ- q^ick with the modern talent for organization, 
ization of and illustrating its facility of communication, 

labor on a . , . . , i , , r^, 

national IS that 01 Capital and labor. The same year, 

scale. 1873, that marks the beginning of capitalistic 

aggregation on a large scale marks also the commence- 
ment of the national organization of labor. For that year 
the Knights of Labor was founded as an association open 
to all trades and to further the interests of labor as such. 
The great railway strike of 1877 was not the work of the 
Knights, but it greatly assisted the extension of that or- 
ganization by the illustration it furnished of labor's com- 
mon cause. 

The programme of the Knights called for governmental 
recognition of labor as a distinct interest in the community 
by the establishment of labor bureaus ; for weekly wage 
payments ; for the abolition of the contract labor sys- 
tem ; for higher wages, and an eight-hour working day. 
Strikes in the coal and iron mining States of the East, in 
1882, centring upon one or more of these demands, re- 
sulted in legislation, conspicuously in West Virginia and 
Pennsylvania, regulating the labor contracts of under- 
ground workers. Such legislation was, however, hardly 
enrolled upon the statute book before it was declared un- 
Laborand Constitutional by the State judiciaries on the 
the Four- ground that it was an unreasonable interference 

teenth 

Amend- with the "freedom of contract " of persons sui 

™^"*^* juris^ and comprised therefore a deprivation of 

property without the "due process of law" required by 
the Fourteenth Amendment. 

It was thus made evident to labor that, in the enjoy- 
ment of the freedom of contract saved to it by the solici- 
tude of the courts, it could not rely greatly upon State 
assistance in getting better terms. The strike record of 



302 The New United States. [§ 147 

1886 absolutely eclipsed that of any two or three preced- 
ing years. At the opening of the year six thousand miles 
of the Gould railway system were tied up for seven weeks ; 
next ensued a strike of freight handlers in Chicago, in the 
Great course of which an anarchistic riot occurred 

strikes. ^X the Hay market ; and finally, in November, 

a strike broke out in the Chicago stockyards which in- 
volved twelve thousand men. It was in the midst of 
these disturbances that what is said to have been the 
first presidential message on the subject of labor was sent 
to Congress by President Cleveland, who called for a 
labor commission with power to settle all controversies 
between capital and labor. The proposition was too radi- 
cal for Congress, which did not act till two years later, 
and then only to provide machinery for the voluntary ar- 
bitration of disputes between interstate railways and their 
employees. 

Meanwhile the Knights of Labor, always too central- 
ized an organization to meet the varied interests of differ- 
ent trades or even of the same trade in different parts of 
the country, and since 1886 considerably discredited by 
The Na- ^^ taint of anarchism, had given way largely 
tionai Fed- to the National Federation of Labor, which, as 

eration of . . , . , , . , 

Labor, its name shows, is more loosely organized. 

1886. jjjg years following 1886 witnessed a number 

of "sympathetic strikes" and boycotts, and in 1892 oc- 
curred the great Homestead strike, in which political au- 
thority was for a time put to scorn, while private war was 
waged between the strikers, on the one side, and the pri- 
vate forces of the employers, on the other, after the true 
mediaeval manner. At this moment the country was 
trembling on the verge of the great commercial panic 
which soon ensued, bringing in its wake universal distress 
and unemployment. Coxey's army of one hundred unem- 
ployed men and half as many reporters marched upon 



1 894-] The Pullman Strike, 303 

Washington to demand employment of the government, 
and would doubtless have done so had not its commander 
been forced to languish some weeks in jail for walking on 
the Capitol lawn. Coxey's arrest occurred on May Day, 
1894 ; ten days later what, because of the part played in 
it by the federal executive and federal courts, must be 
deemed the most momentous strike in our history, began 
in Chicago, when the employees of the Pullman Car 
Company refused to accept a reduction of wages. 

Ever since the passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act 
in 1890, the federal judiciary had been elaborating a 
theory of conspiracy destined to bring the " sympathetic 
strike" and what is termed the "secondary boycott" 
under legal condemnation. By this theory the boycott 
and the strike are legitimately available only to employees 
directly affected by the adverse action of the employer 
boycotted or struck against. When, accordingly, the 
American Railway Union voted to aid the 
courts^in'^^ PuUman employees by refusing to handle 
the Pullman Pullman cars and proceeded to strike against 

stnke, i8qo. , i • , , • i 

those of their own employers who resisted 
the boycott, the United States District Court of Illinois 
issued a sweeping injunction ordering all officials and 
members of the American Railway Union to desist from 
every species of interference with the business of twenty- 
three designated railway companies, and when Eugene 
V. Debs, president of the Union, ignored the injunction, 
ordered his arrest and imprisonment for contempt of court. 
Since this line of action was based upon, and was even- 
tually justified by the United States Supreme Court by 
reference to, the Anti-Trust Act, it will be seen that the 
courts in question were utilizing the processes of equity 
to anticipate the violation of a criminal statute, at that 
time an unparalleled proceeding. 

Equally drastic was the action of the federal executive- 



304 The New United States. [§§ 147, 148. 

Chicago, as the recent scene of the World's Columbian 
Exposition, still harbored hundreds and even thousands 
of toughs and hoodlums, who welcomed with enthusiasm 
the opportunity for incendiarism, vandalism, and crime 
that the strike afforded. Ey Article IV of the 

Interven- r i i ... 

tionofthe Constitution federal assistance is immediately 
resment. available to local authorities to crush domes- 
tic violence. At this perilous juncture, however, Illinois 
had a governor who was unwilling either to take effective 
measures himself or to put it in the way of others to do 
so. Fortunately President Cleveland was not disposed to 
stand upon ceremony, but, advised that the mails were 
being obstructed and interstate commerce interfered with 
in an illegal manner, ordered regular troops to Chicago 
without further waiting upon Governor Altgeld's painful 
deliberations. 

Thus federal autliority outshone State authority in 
effectiveness on all hands. A distinction, nevertheless, 
has to be made between the action of the President and 
that of the courts. Executive authority has for one of 
its primary ends the meeting of novel situations, and is 
accordingly relieved more or less of the necessity of con- 
sidering the trend of its isolated actions. Judicial au- 
thority, on the contrary, is expected to rest each action 
upon precedent, and to view it in the guise of precedent 
once it is performed. It is hardly matter for surprise, 
, , ^ therefore, that the precedent created in the 

Labor and ^ -^^ , , i , ■ /• 

the injunc- case of Dcbs led the way to an exercise of 
*'°"* the injunction power by the courts that has 

subsequently come to constitute one of the principal 
grievances of organized labor. 

148. The Trust Problem : Kailway Regulation. 

In connection with the consclidation of capital, the 
distinction at once obtrudes itself upon our attention 



1870-1900.] Railway Regulation. 305 

between, on the one hand, deliberate organization, and, 
on the other, transference through the automatic pro- 
cesses of economic distribution of a great and increasing 
share of the productive capital of the country to the own- 
ership of a relatively small group. Both these processes 
are, however, so closely involved and have rendered such 
constant interchange of service to each other that it is 
impracticable to heed this distinction further than to 
point out its existence. Likewise we have no 
and methods space to consider minutely the methods by 
Sc*cmicea-' which busiucss conccms have been united, 
tration. which has been sometimes by purchase, some- 

times by lease, sometimes by an understanding or infor- 
mal agreement between their respective owners, some- 
times by mergence into a corporation, and sometimes, 
where the concerns united were themselves corporations 
by the device of a holding corporation, controlling the 
majority of the stock of the constituent companies. But 
a^ain mere mention must suffice. What we are interested 
in is the fact of this progressive consolidation of the 
management and direction of the business of the country, 
and the attitude that government has assumed toward 

this fact. 

The questions raised by business consolidation first 
confronted government in connection with the railroads. 
Between 1870 and 1900 the railroad mileage of the coun- 
try increased nearly four-fold. Much of this extension, 
however, was, at the time it took place, entirely uncalled 
for, with the result that a most ferocious and destructive 
competition at once ensued between rival lines for a sus- 
Eviisof taining business. The railroad business is, 

railroading, moreover, particularly exposed to the ravages 
of competition from the fact that it is subject to what 
economists call the " law of increasing returns " ; that is 
to say, a railroad has certain fixed charges to meet, which 

20 



306 The New United States, [§ 14s. 

do not increase at all proportionately with an increase of 
business. The panic of 1873 was distinctly a railroad 
panic : two fifths of the railroad mileage of the country 
passed into the hands of receivers, while between 1876 
and 1879 four hundred and fifty roads were sold under 
foreclosure. Railroad consolidation now began on a large 
scale, several of the great eastern companies securing 
Chicago terminals at this time. The outcome, neverthe- 
less, was not the end of competition, but competition of 
vaster proportions than ever before, bringing with it dis- 
tress not merely to the combatants but to the general 
public as well. 

The situation was particularly bad in the Northwest, 
which, as it had been made, so to speak, by the railroads, 
now found itself quite at the mercy of its creators, who, 
in their desperate efforts to get business from one an- 
other, made and unmade persons, companies, and local- 
ities, not in malice, but simply in the " course of trade." 
^^ ^ The so-called " Granger legislation " of the 

The Granger , 7 i j 

laws and the northwest States was designed to remedy 
eourts. these conditions by prescribing rates for the 

transportation and warehousing of certain classified prod- 
ucts, principally grains, and by forbidding certain types 
of discrimination against shippers and locahties. At first 
the courts were inclined to favor this species of enact- 
ment, and the Supreme Court of the United States b^sed 
its crucial decision in Mumi vs. Illinois upon reasoning 
which left the State legislatures in a thoroughly auto- 
cratic position with reference to railroad property. Thus 
encouraged, the legislatures renewed the attack with vim, 
but with the effect finally of inducing the courts to recon- 
sider their position. In the Wabash Decision in 1886 
the Supreme Court, reversing precedents of many years' 
standing, held that interstate commerce was not subject 
to State regulation, even though there were no Congres- 



1870-1900.] Railway Regulation. 307 

sional enactment covering the matter sought to be regu- 
lated, a decision which at one blow invalidated practically 
all of the Granger statutes. 

The old evil features of railroad management unfortu- 
nately still persisted, while new ones had been added by 
Persistence ^^e ingenuity of railroad managers in evading 
of evils. the law. One of these was the "pool," by 

which formerly competing roads divided a certain branch 
of traffic between them and apportioned the proceeds on 
the basis of an agreed percentage. Another was " rebat- 
ing," by virtue of which large and powerful shippers re- 
ceived back a considerable fraction of what they had paid 
for transportation, while smaller shippers, whose favors 
were comparatively negligible, were mulcted to the full 
extent allowed by the law. Finally, there was the "long 
and short haul " device, by which charges to near-by way 
stations were kept higher than charges to the great ter- 
minals, and smaller towns were put at a disadvantage 
similar to that suffered by the smaller shippers. Accord- 
ingly a great popular clamor arose for Congressional ac- 
tion, the outcome of which was the Interstate Commerce 
Act of 1887. 

By this act railroads engaged in interstate commerce 
were forbidden to enter into pools, to discriminate be- 
tween shippers, to make secret tariffs, or to 
Commerc?^^^ charge proportionately more for a short than for 
Commission ^ long^ haul. At the same time a commission 

created. r r- i • i r • • • 

of five was created with power of investigation 
and prosecution and with authority, in furtherance of its 
work of investigation, to provide a uniform system of 
railroad accounting. Despite the aspect of promise which 
the Act originally wore, it soon became evident that it 
could not withstand the flagrant efforts of the railroads to 
evade its provisions, particularly in view of the attitude 
that the courts revealed. The fatal weakness of the Act 



308 The Nezv United States. [§ 148. 

resided in the fact that the Commission was able to en- 
force its orders only by equity proceedings in the federal 
courts, which provision the Supreme Court interpreted to 
mean that there should be a retrial in court of each cause 
on its merits. Harassed by its administrative work and 
hampered at every turn by the construction 
given by the Court to the law of its origina- 
tion, the Commission was constrained, at the close of the 
period under review, to write itself down a failure. 

Meantime all the evils of railroading continued on a 
large scale, v/ith resultant insecurity to railroad profits^ 
The upshot of the matter was that the railroad business 
became more and more largely speculative and that rail- 
road managers became stock manipulators, who relied 
rather upon the investor for profits than upon the ship- 
per. Manipulation had, however, besides its pecuniary 
profits, a larger object, namely, consolidation, toward 
which, moreover, the panic of 1893 afforded a special 
impetus. In 1880 some fifteen hundred railroad com- 
Raiiroad con- p^nies Were in existence ; by the close of 1895 
ceniration. forty companies controlled rather more than 
half of the mileage of the country. Consolidation was 
doubtless the necessary preliminary to a final adjustment 
of the railroad business to the best interests of the 
country, and even at the outset it revealed one benefit. 
This was the bringing of the roads of the country to a 
uniform gauge, which had been generally done by 1900. 
Meantime, with the developing concentration of the oil 
business, the coal business, the woollen manufactures, the 
iron and steel business, the business of manufacturing 
agricultural implements, and the leather business, revealed 
by the census of 1890, the " Trust Problem," in its more 
general phase, had been brought to the attention of Con- 
gress. In some cases the advancing concentration was 
due to railroad discrimination and rebates, and in other 



1870-1900.] Railway Regulation. 309 

cases it was due to the tariff. Congress, however, de- 
cided not to parley with causes, but to grapple with the 

thing itself. By the Sherman Act of July 2, 
Trust Act of 1S90, combinations and conspiracies in re- 
1890; its straint of trade among the several States and 

with foreign countries were made illegal, and 
punishable with fine and imprisonment. The undoubted 
intention of this measure was to reach combinations in 
industrials, but whatever prospect there may have been 
of success for such a program was speedily removed by 
the decision of the Supreme Court in the Sugar Trust 
Case, in which a line was drawn between transportation 
and production, and the latter was held to be entirely 
infra-State and hence subject only to State action. The 
formation in 1901 of the United States Steel Corporation, 
the greatest industrial combination that the world has 
ever seen, took place therefore without a voice being 
raised to question its legality. 



149. The Tarifif Question. 

Two questions, and only two, became party issues in 
the period between 1877 and 1897, namely, the tariff 
question and the currency question. The creation of a 
party issue out of the tariff question was assisted by the 
fact that the two parties traditionally took more or less 
opposed views with regard to it, while the currency ques- 
tion grew into an issue on account of the sectional char- 
acter of the interest in "free silver." 

The high protective tariff dates from the Civil War, 
during which it was created to compensate American 
producers for the heavy ^excises which they were called 
upon to pay and which, without the tariff, would have put 
them at a fatal disadvantage in com.peting with foreign 
producers. This, hov/ever, is only one half the story. 



3IO The New United States. [§ 149. 

The other half is this : the war being at an end, the 
excise taxes were removed, but the tariff, on the con- 
_ , trary, still remained at substantially its war 

Early years i i rr-i • i i i 

of the pro- level. There were mdeed some reductions 
tective tariff. -^^ ^g^^, but these Were largely restored in 
1875, while in 1867 there had been a positive increase in 
the woollen schedule. And so we come down to the year 
1882, when, with half the debt paid off and the rest 
funded in long-term bonds, not to fall due for years, a 
rapidly mounting surplus, which drew huge sums annu- 
ally from their normal employment in trade, thrust the 
necessity of reducing the government's income into 
public notice. 

It is true that another method of meeting the difficulty 
was available, namely, a policy of liberal expenditures ; 
and for some years back Congress had been resorting to 
this method increasingly. Thus between 1867 and 1882 
nearly forty acts had been passed increasing expenditures 
in pensions, and, through the operation of the Act of 
Surplus and I §795 granting arrearages of pensions from 
pensions. 4^^ ^^Xo. of disability for which, in any partic- 
ular case, the pension was allowed, such expenditures 
were doubled in two years. During the same interval, 
also, the Rivers and Harbors Bill had begun to take on 
its fearful and wonderful proportions, that of 1882, which 
was passed over President Arthur's veto, carrying an 
appropriation of nineteen milhons of dollars, or five times 
that called for by the bill of 1870. With the same pur- 
pose in view, of reducing the surplus while keeping up 
the tariff, the government began in the early eighties to 
construct a new navy and to erect coast fortifications. 

All of thislavishness, however, passing often into sheer 
waste, proved unavailing, and accordingly, with the sur- 
plus for the year nearly one hundred and fifty millions, 
Congress in 1882 decided to disarm the inevitable by 



1877-1897.] The Tariff Question. 311 

making a show of surrender. This it did by providing 
for a Tariff Commission, which, after travelling up and 
down the country, taking testimony the while on the 
TheTariS State of industry, reported a project for a 
of 1883. moderate reduction of the tariff, amounting in 

the aggregate to about twenty per cent. The outcome 
was sufficiently curious, but at the same time not un- 
matched by similar occurrences in connection with both 
earlier and later tariff legislation. The bill that the 
Senate passed was in fair accord with the recommenda- 
tions of the commission, but the range of duties provided 
for by the House bill was considerably higher. Never 
were the representatives of local interests more clamorous 
within the walls of Congress. When, accordingly, the 
final measure came from the conference committee, it was 
found that the Houses had, in some cases, adjusted their 
differences by adding together the rates for which they re- 
spectively stood and then had neglected to divide the result. 
The Act of 1883 was passed by a Republican Congress, 
but a large element of the Democratic party under the 
leadership of Randall of Pennsylvania was also protec- 
tionist in sentiment. Thus, when a bill was presented m 
the Democratic House in 1884 for a horizon- 
prectiot' tal reduction of the tariff. Democrats were 
'^^^' quite ready to join their adversaries in throt- 

tling it while the Democratic platform of the same year 
was almost as protectionist in tone as the Repubhcan. 
Two years later, even, the Morrison Tariff Bill was re- 
fused even the scant courtesy of consideration^ by^ a 
House majority composed of the Republican minority 
and thirty-five Democrats. , 

The tariff issue was, at last, made an issue by Presi- 
dent Cleveland's annual message of 1887, which argued 
the subject of the tariff from the reform standpoint to 
almost the entire exclusion of every other topic. Never 



312 The New United States, [§ 149. 

was the authoritative and advantageous character of the 
platform from which a President of the United States 
speaks through his message better illustrated than by the 
consequences which ensued upon this remarkable state 
paper, the ultimate result of which was to furnish Amer- 
ican parties with an issue for two presidential campaigns, 
and the immediate result of which, as was shown by the 
passage of the Mills Bill by the House, was to make the 
Democratic party, to all external appearance at least, 
united and militant for tariff reduction. Nor v/as the 
q-u^ -n: Republican party slow to accept the challenge, 
question The elimination of the surplus still furnished 

issue, 1887?^ the most obvious purpose of revenue reform, 
but, as the Republican leaders pointed out, 
reform with this object need not necessarily take the shape 
of tariff reduction. Accordingly, as against President 
Cleveland's "free trade" project, as they insisted upon 
representing it, the RepubHcans proposed to cut down 
importations from abroad by raising the schedules and so 
make the surplus an opportunity for enhancing protection. 
The Democratic party had thus assigned to it the difficult 
task of justifying an attack upon an arrangement under 
which the country was prosperous. It failed, and the 
result was the McKinley Tariff of 1890, the features of 
which were a tariff on agricultural products, designed to 
The McKin- meet the western criticism that protection 
ley Act, 1890. benefited only the eastern manufactures ; a 
very high tariff upon certain manufactures, such as 
woollens and tin plate ; a bounty on raw sugar, which 
was admitted free ; and provision for reciprocity treaties. 
It was soon evident that the reduction of revenues 
anticipated from the nev/ tariff was to be realized; but 
Congress also decided to make a direct front attack upon 
the surplus. " God help the surplus," exclaimed Cor- 
poral Tanner, with unction, keenly relishing the issue 



1877-1897-] The Tariff Question. 313 

that he foresaw. The Dependent Pension Act, which, as 

administratively applied, made all who had served ninety 

The "billion ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ eligible for a pension 
dollar" Con- upon reaching a certain age, and for a higher 
pension a few years later, resulted in doubling 
the number of pensioners in four years ; and like lavish- 
ness in other directions made the Congress that enacted 
the McKinley Tariff famous as the "billion dollar 
Congress." 

But the McKinley Tariff had also another effect not so 
harmonious with the calculations of those who stood spon- 
sors for it, namely, a general rise in prices. Where be- 
fore it had been on the aggressive the Republican party 
now found itself on the defensive, with the result that the 
Democratic party, now the champion not so much of 
business and the taxpayer as of the consumer, triumphed 
overwhelmingly in the Congressional elections of 1890, 
and in 1892 came into complete control of the govern- 
ment for the first time since i860. Its apparent good 
fortune turned out, though, to be totally illusory ; for 
Cleveland was not yet inaugurated when, with the bank- 
ruptcy of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway, the finan- 
cial panic, for which the currency legislation of the last 
fifteen yearj had been paving the way, was upon the 
country. The Wilson Bill, embodying the ideas upon 
tariff reform which had been held before the country by 
the official representatives of the Democratic party during 
the recent campaign, was therefore introduced into the 
House of Representatives (December 19, 1893) at a most 
unpropitious hour, but one, as it transpired, no 
craticefibrt niore than ominous of the fate that awaited it. 
tofmmea ^ provided free entry for raw materials, such 

tanfE, 1893. , , . , J J J 

as lumber, iron, wool, and sugar; reduced 
duties upon manufactured goods, such as silks, cot- 
tons, and woollens ; substituted ad valorem duties for 



314 The New United States. [§§ 149. 150. 

specific duties wherever possible; and imposed a two per 
cent tax upon incomes in excess of four thousand dollars. 
With these features intact, the bill passed the House, but 
in the Senate, which proved as ever to be the palladium of 
" local interests," and indeed of interests even more spe- 
cial, coal, iron ore, and sugar were taken from the free 
list, while some of the senators, in anticipation of the natu- 
ral effect of their action, speculated in sugar stocks. 
Feeling that the bill in its mutilated form meant " party- 
perfidy," President Cleveland allowed it to become a law 
without his signature, which it did, August, 1894. A few 
months later, the United States Supreme Court, on a 
rehearing, one of the justices having in the interval 
changed his mind, declared, by the bare majority of that 
justice's vote, a great part of the income tax law to be 
unconstitutional, though the same Court had upheld a 
similar law a few years previously. 

Thus, on every hand, the Democratic party met with 
humiliation in its effort to deal with the tariff question 
which it had itself raised to the dignity of a party issue. 
Meantime, moreover, a much more importunate question 
had arisen, which was to spell division and defeat for the 
Democratic party for years. 



150. The Currency Question : Free Silver vs. The Gold 

Standard. 

As was related above, the United States government in 
the course of the Civil War issued some four hundred 
and fifty millions of legal tender notes, which, driving all 
specie to cover, became the currency of the country. 
The result was a rapid rise in prices and also — which 
was particularly important in view of the predominantly 
agricultural character of industry — in land values. But, 
the war being over, these values began to recede, with the 



1875-1890.] The Currency Question. 315 

effect of bringing all standing farm mortgages up to a 
constantly higher fraction of the values on which they 
Rise of the ^^^^ Originally hypothecated. Then also with 
currency the gradual approach, greatly accelerated by 
question. ^^^ Resumption Act of 1875, of gold and 
" greenbacks " to a parity, it became evident that if the 
government adhered to its intention to pay its bonds " in 
coin" and to issue no more legal tender notes, it would 
eventually pay off the war debt in dollars of considerably 
greater purchasing power than those which it had origi- 
nally borrowed. It was with these facts in mind that the 
Greenback party arose out of the Grangers in 1876 to 
demand the repeal of the Resumption Act, the abolition 
of bank notes, and the issue of more legal tender notes 
by the government. 

Nor were the Greenbackers the only currency reform- 
ers. In 1873 the government had discontinued the coin- 
age of silver dollars of full legal tender, and the silver- 
Rise of the ^^'^^'^g interests were demanding that such 
silver Coinage be resumed at the old ratio of sixteen 

quesaon. ^^ ^^^^ ^^ which ratio silver still stood to gold 
till 1884. The Granger interest and the Silver interest 
now struck an alliance. In 1878 the Bland-AUison Act, 
transformed in the Senate from a free coinage bill, was 
passed over the President's veto, making the coinage of 
from two to four millions of dollars of silver per month 
obligatory upon the government ; also an act, prohibiting 
the further cancellation of greenbacks, of which three 
hundred and forty-six millions of dollars were still out- 
standing ; and finally a resolution declaring all bonds to 
be payable in silver. Thus matters stood in the realm of 
currency legislation until 1890. 

The opponents of the Bland-Allison Act had predicted 
that all sorts of disaster would flow from it, but the 
advancing prosperity of the country had proved to be of 



3x6 The New United States. [§ 150. 

hardier stock than these prophets had anticipated. On 
the other hand, the Act in question had not met the 
expectations of the farmers of the Middle West, who 
from the later "eighties" on began for the first time to 
feel the competition of the Dakota wheat-fields as well as 
of agricultural expansion abroad. Doubtless, too, there 
, . , was a modicum of truth in the contention now 

Agricul- 
tural begun to be made by the advocates of " more 
istress. ^^^ cheaper money," that with the contrac- 
tion of the national bank-note circulation, due to the 
decline in the interest rates of United States bonds, and 
with the shrinkage from year to year in gold production, 
there was a real advance in the purchasing power of the 
dollar which meant more or less hardship to debtors. 

The Greenback party, after casting a vote of three 
hundred thousand in the election of 1880, had disappeared 
before the advance of prosperity in 1884. The new agri- 
cultural discontent had therefore to organize anew, which 
it did in 1890 in the Farmers' Alliance, later known as 
The Popu- the Populist Party. Meantime, with the ad- 
lists, mission of several western States, the political 
strength of silver, whose champions were k) be found 
within the ranks of both parties, had increased enormously. 
Again the farmers and the silver-mine owners allied them- 
selves, and again the silver-mine owners were seen to 
dominate the alliance. In June, 1890, a bill for the free 
coinage of silver passed the Senate, which, from now on, 
despite its supposed conservative role, remained for some 
years the radical body on this subject. The measure was 
eventually killed in the House, but President 
Thl 1?,^' Harrison's wavering attitude resulted in silver's 

ixid.li iUr- cj 

chase Act, obtaining a great concession in the Sherman 
^ ^°' Purchase Act, which made it binding upon 

the government to purchase four and one-half million 
ounces of silver per month at market value, and to 



1892.] The Currency Question. 317 

issue treasury notes in exchange for the same. Forthwith 
the decline in silver went forward at a more rapid rate ' 
than ever, — a phenomenon to be attributed in part to 
the hostility of foreign governments, which were now 
increasingly going over to the gold standard. But the 
decline in agricultural prices also continued, with the 
consequence that in the election of 1890 the Populists 
returned over forty members to Congress from eleven 
States, and in the election of 1892 secured a million votes 
and eleven presidential electors. The important phase, 
politically, of the growth of this new party was its rapid 
advance in the South, where the cause of white suprem- 
acy, still precarious in view of the constitutions then in 
force in that region and particularly of the 
SSid?^^ recent attempt of the Republicans to enact 
of the parties ^ Lodge Force Bill, compelled a speedy 

on tne silver ta ^ ^ ^ 

question, accommodation with it on the part of the Dem- 
^^^^* ocratic leaders. The Lodge Force Bill, as 

was mentioned above, was defeated by a coalition of Sil- 
ver Republicans and Democratic senators, and from that 
date the triumph of Free Silver in the counsels of the 
Democratic party became constantly more likely. In the 
campaign of 1892 the platforms of both parties were 
equally ambiguous upon the currency question, while the 
Democratic platform with like ambiguity denounced the 
Sherman Act as a " cowardly makeshift," a sentiment to 
which the advocates of either metal could subscribe with 
equal fervor. Mr. Cleveland, on the other hand, was 
characteristically outspoken against the Free Silver idea, 
while Mr. Harrison was equivocal and evasive. Events 
were soon to force the issue -n both parties. 

Beginning with 1890, disturbances in the English finan- 
cial market had called for heavy gold exportations from 
the United States, which were continued through ensuing 
months to meet extraordinary demands by several of the 



3i8 The New United States. [§ 150. 

great chancelleries on the Continent. The consequence 
for the United States was a rapid dechne in the Gold 
Reserve concomitant with an equally rapid increase in 
the nation's stock of credit money, due to the operation 
of the Sherman Act. The panic of 1893 supervening, on 
June 30 President Cleveland summoned Congress to meet 
in extra session on August 7, and in his message on Au- 
gust 8 demanded the unconditional repeal of the Sherman 
Act. The House responded promptly, and the vote on 
J ^ the repeal showed that the President had two 
the Sherman thirds of his party with him ; but the Senate 
^*" delayed action till October 30, and even then 

it was to Repubhcan rather than Democratic senators 
that the country was indebted for the repeal that was 
finally voted. 

In the course of the next two years and a half the ad- 
ministration borrowed something over two hundred mil- 
lions of dollars in the effort to keep the gold reserve up to 
one hundred millions. The policy was by no means an 
unqualified success, since the immediate result of a loan 
was a raid on the treasury by prospective purchasers of 
government securities for the gold with which to pay for 
them and to secure which the government was issuing 
The alien- them. Thus what was poured through the 
ment of par- funnel was first taken from the spigot, the 
silver ques- owuer of the cask paying roundly the while 
tion, 1896. £qj. ^|-jg process. The loans were also open to 
other criticisms, a fact that was eagerly seized upon by 
the pro-silver men of the President's own party. At 
the same time the commercial depression which ensued 
upon the panic, by making a multitude credulous of finan- 
cial panaceas, was also greatly furthering the cause of 
silver. The Republican convention of 1896, which de- 
clared against free coinage of silver except by interna- 
tional agreement, and for the maintenance of the gold 



1896-1897-] The Currency Question, 319 

standard until such agreement should be arrived at, was 
marked by the secession from it of the delegations of the 
silver States. The Democratic convention, on the other 
hand, fell entirely under the control of the free-silver 
wing, and declared for " the free and unlimited coinage 
of both gold and silver at the present legal ratio of sixteen 
to one, without waiting for the aid or consent of any 
other nation." The campaign that ensued was one of 
the most remarkable in the history of the United States, 
as well for the "business methods " — a rather inimical 
phrase, if the truth be known — put into effect by the 
Republican manager, Hanna, as for the extraordinary 
oratorical feats of the Democratic candidate, Mr. Bryan, 
who is estimated to have addressed five millions of people 
from the stump. 

Though the victory of the Republican party was due 
primarily to its championship of the gold standard, the 
use to which it immediately put it was to supersede 
the Wilson Tariff with the so-called Dingley 
Tariff and^^ Tariff, which, shaped essentially on the lines 
the gold of the McKinley Tariflf but with a higher av- 

standard. , i i 

erage schedule, was enacted July 24, 1897. 
Not till March, 1900, the menace of free silver being no 
longer necessary to assure the continuance of the Repub- 
lican party in power, was an Act passed for the strength- 
ening of the Gold Reserve, which was raised to one 
hundred and fifty millions and was further fortified by 
power being conferred upon the Secretary of the Treasury 
to issue bonds to keep it at that level. At the same time 
the note-issue power of the national banks was somewhat 
enlarged, — a measure which, together with the rapidly 
increasing stock of the world's gold from 1897 on, met 
completely any just demand for " more and cheaper 
money." During the same interval, moreover, the swift 
expansion of business was enabling the country to utilize 



320 The New United States, [§§ 150, 151. 

to advantage its hitherto excessive quantity of secondary- 
currency, so that there was a constantly decreasing hke- 
lihood of the government's being called upon to make 
good its promise of redemption. The Gold Standard 
was, in short, secure. 

151. Civil Service. 

It is evident that the interest of the chosen representa- 
tives of the people during the period we are reviewing 
was centred for the most part upon the problem of mak- 
ing government serviceable to business ; nor was the cry 
of reform often raised during these years, nor when raised 
was it assured of any large response from those who 
directed public opinion and legislation. In two mat- 
ters, nevertheless, the period witnessed notable reforms : 
namely, the adoption of the Australian or secret ballot in 
Earl sta e ^*^^^ °^ ^^e States, and the final adoption and 
of civil ser- rapid extension of civil service reform by the 
vicereorm. national government. As we have seen, a 
Civil Service Commission was created in 1871, which 
came to an end two years later through the wilful negli- 
gence of Congress, whose members had visions of all 
governmental patronage passing from their control. But 
even without the aid of a commission, the cause of a non- 
partisan civil service still made headway under President 
Hayes, who followed up the declaration in his inaugural, 
that officials should be secure in their positions so long 
as they remained moral and competent, with an executive 
order warning all officers of the government against par- 
ticipating in political management and forbidding political 
assessments. 

It was, however, the events which marked the early 
days of the next administration that brought forward 
once more the project of Civil Service Reform in a way 
to enlist an irresistible public opinion on its side. Hardly 



1871-1883.] Civil Service. 321 

had President Garfield taken office when he nominated a 
collector of the port of New York who turned out to be 
distasteful to Senators Conkling and Piatt of that State. 
These gentlemen, invoking what is known as " senatorial 
courtesy," then sought to defeat the nomination in the 
Senate, but, failing, resigned their seats in high dudgeon, 
thinking to secure a " vindication " through reelection by 
the State legislature, but here, too, met a most inglorious 
overturn. The result of this episode was to show thought- 
ful people how pervasive was the influence of the ques- 
tion of patronage throughout our government, — a lesson 
soon to be reinforced by a frightful tragedy. On July 2, 
as the President was entering the Pennsylvania Station 
at Washington, he was fatally shot by a fanatical office- 
seeker, who had persuaded himself that Garfield's removal 
was the only way of healing the breach that had been 
made in the Republican party by the question of the 
New York collectorship. Reform now came within easy 
The Pendie- reach. On January 16, 1883, the Pendleton 
ton Act, 1883. Civil Service Act, passed by a Democratic 
House and a Republican Senate, was signed by Presi- 
dent Arthur. It authorized the President to appoint a 
bi-partisan Civil Service Commission with authority to 
hold competitive examinations in the various States and 
Territories, and to make out lists of the successful com- 
petitors from which future appointments to the "classi- 
fied " service should be made proportionately to the 
population of these units. President Arthur at once 
" classified " some fourteen thousand governmental posi- 
tions, the incumbents of which were thereby secured from 
partisan removal; and since that time the ratio borne by 
the classified service to the total civil service of the gov- 
ernment has steadily grown. During Harrison's admin- 
istration, Theodore Roosevelt, an aggressive champion of 
the reform, was made chairman of the commission, and 

21 



322 The New United States, [§§ 151, 152. 

by his public utterance performed a much needed service 
in refuting the interested criticisms of professional spoils- 
Civil ser- men. The classified service was now rapidly 
vice to-day. extended, so that by the close of President 
Cleveland's second administration it embraced, with the 
exception of the fourth-class postmasterships, practically 
all governmental positions between the grade of laborer 
and those positions which are filled by the President 
with the advice and consent of the Senate. Finally, in 
the closing days of President Roosevelt's administration, 
even these categories were invaded, first, by putting the 
consular service on a professional basis, and, secondly, by 
the classification of all fourth-class postmasterships north 
of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi. 

152. Administrative Measures. 

The Civil Service Act is to be regarded as administra- 
tive legislation; that is to say, it goes to determine the 
make-up of government and affects its functioning. Other 
legislation, as well as developments less formal than leg- 
islation, working to the same effect have also to be noted 
for this period. 

Thus by the Presidential Succession Act of June, 1886, 
it was provided that, in case of the death or disability of 
T,, „ . both the President and Vice-President, the 

The Presi- ' 

dentiai Sue- Secretary of State, if eligible, should succeed 
the krectoral to the vacancy, and after him, similarly, the 
Count Act ; Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of 

nnal repeal or -' -' ' -' 

the Tenure of War, the Attorney-General, and so on. By 
the Act of February 3, 1887, designed to pro- 
vide against a recurrence of the situation arising out of the 
election of 1876, it was provided that each State should 
settle for itself, through such machinery as it might pro- 
vide, all contests arising with respect to its delegates in 



1886-1887.] Administrative Measures. 323 

the electoral college, and that in the absence of such de- 
termination by the State itself and of agreement between 
the two Houses of Congress, the State concerned should 
lose its electoral vote. Finally, owing to the controversy 
between President Cleveland and the Senate over the 
former's refusal to furnish reasons for certain removals 
and the plain evidences of popular approval of the Presi- 
dent, Congress, in the closing days of the session of 1887, 
repealed what was still left of the Tenure of Office Act of 
1867. 

153. Relations of the Departments of Government. 

President Cleveland's victory in this matter should be 

ranged with the similar victory of President Hayes in the 

. . matter of the rider to the army appropriation 

Kesuscitation y i j. ir 

ofthePresi- bill in 1 878, with President Garfield s triumph 
^-"'^y- over Conkling and Piatt in 1881, and indeed 

with Mr. Cleveland's own still greater achievements in 
securing the repeal of the Sherman Purchase Act and in 
bringing the tariff and currency questions to a definite 
issue. Never did a President better demonstrate with 
what vast authority his office invests an incumbent of 
strong personality. Concomitant with the emergence of 
the Presidency from its temporary eclipse, during the 
period of reconstruction, was a perceptible diminution of 
public interest in, and esteem for, Congress. This was 
greatly assisted in 1890, when the rules adopted by the 
Republican House under the leadership of Reed, for the 
Recession of Purpose of curbing minority fiUbustering and 
Congress from facilitating legislation, were seen to have 

the foreground . , ,. - • ^^ ^ ■\^ :^ j 

of popular greatly cut down discussion in that body and 
interest. ^^ \i2iVQ made it little more than an assembly 
for the registration of the decisions of its numerous com- 
mittees. The Senate still afforded its members ample op- 
portunity to debate the projects before it, but this oppor- 



324 The New United States. [§§ 153, 154. 

tunity was so often abused that its exercise came to 
excite contemptuous remark. Particularly did the Senate 
suffer in popular estimation because of the part it played 
in sustaining the agitation for free silver, and still more, 
from the scandals that notoriously attended the election 
of some of its members. 



154. The Federal Judiciary and the States. 

Much more important, however, than any change in the 
relation of the departments of the national government to 
each other is the view that the federal courts beiran to 
take during this period of their jurisdiction under the 
Fourteenth Amendment, and its effect upon the govern- 
mental competency of the States. The decisions in the 
Slaughter House Case and in Munn vs. Illifiois, had left 
State legislation practically free from review by the na- 
tional tribunals. This had always been, however, con- 
trary to the view of a strong minority of the Supreme 
Bench. From about 1890 this minority became a ma- 
, . , jority, so that, from that date on, State leg:isla- 

State Ie<''isla- ' j ' > ' s? 

tion brought tion, particularly when touching business, 
supe^sSn came more and more under the supervision of 
of the federal the federal judiciary, — a supervision sure to 

judiciary. , . ,■' •'.'■. . , , 

be exercised, moreover, in accordance with the 
same individualistic view of the relation of government to 
property that lay behind its initial assertion. More and 
more, therefore, the State found it difficult to exercise, 
without transgressing either the Fourteenth Amendment 
or the commerce clause of the Constitution, as construed 
in the Wabash case, that control over capital and corpo- 
rations which the federal government v/as not yet ready 
even to attempt. 



1889-1898.] Foreign Relations. 325 



155. Foreign Kelations. 

Continuing along fairly conventional lines, and hinting 
but scantily at the greatly altered role that the United 
States was presently to begin playing in the world's 
affairs, our foreign relations during this period can, for 
the most part, be dismissed with very brief reference. 
In 1889, during Mr. Blaine's aggressive secretaryship, 
the United States, Germany, and Great Britain, after an 
-. exciting controversy between the first two, 

Samoa. ... ^ 

agreed upon a jomt protectorate over Samoa, 
which was terminated ten years later by the transference 
of Tutuila to the United States and the rest of the group 
to Germany in full sovereignty. One of the principal 
items of Blaine's policy was the extension of the influence 
of the United States over Central and South America, 
and the Pan-American Congress, convened at Washing- 
ton in 1889, was in furtherance of this policy, which, 
unfortunately, received a severe setback during the 
years immediately following, on account of acrimonious 
T,, . , disputes between the United States and Chile. 

Blaine s ^ 

American At another point, too, the imaginative Secre- 
^° ''^^' tary met with rebuff and disappointment, 

namely, in the attempt to assert for the United States 
absolute dominion over Bering Sea. Eventually the 
disputes that arose with Great Britain on account of the 
seizure by United States revenue cutters of British 
sealing vessels in those waters were referred to an 
international tribunal for settlement. The American 
pretensions, which, as a matter of fact, were easily re- 
futable from the utterances of earlier American diplomats, 
Bering Sea Were entirely denied by the Tribunal, which 
arbitration, none the less added another to the already long 
list of examples from the history of British-American 
relations in favor of the idea of international arbitration. 



326 The New United States. [§ 155. 

Blaine had retired in 1892 to contest the presidential 
nomination with his chief, but his successor, Foster, 
acted quite in the spirit of his pohcy when, in the closing 
days of Harrison's administration, he eagerly took 
advantage of an offer of the government recently set 
up by rebellion in the Hawaiian Islands and 

Hawaii, 1803. . , , , r ,1 • r t 

negotiated a treaty for the annexation of those 
islands to the United States. An investigation, however, 
set on foot by President Cleveland, seemed to show that 
the Hawaiian revolution owed its success rather too much 
to American assistance, both official and otherwise. The 
Treaty of Annexation was accordingly withdrawn from 
the Senate, and the American flag which had been raised 
over the government buildings at Honolulu was hauled 
down. On the other hand, the Senate would not hear of 
any action looking to the restoration of the native 
dynasty, but by unanimous vote declared that the 
Hawaiian Islands should maintain their own government 
free from interference, either by the United States or any 
other nation. 

If President Cleveland's action with reference to 
Hawaii seemed anti-patriotic, his action two years later 
in forcing Great Britain to arbitrate her long-standing 
boundary dispute with Venezuela, taken on the premise 
The Monroe *^^^ ^^^ natural Superiority and the Monroe 
Doctrine ; Doctrine make tlie United States " practi- 
the canal ' cally Sovereign on the American continent," 
question. aroused the greatest outburst of patriotic en- 
thusiasm that this period witnessed. Upon somewhat 
the same basis rested also the concern which Americans 
beo-an to feel with reference to an Isthmian Canal after 
the Panama company received its charter from the 
French government in 1879; and in his message of 
March 8, 1885, President Hayes declared the policy of 
this country to be a "canal under American control." 



1889-1897] Foreign Relations. 327 

The refusal of American statesmen, however, to accept 
the idea of a neutralized canal, on the one hand, and 
Great Britain's insistence upon the Clayton-Bulwer 
Treaty (seepage 174) on the other, prevented any real 
progress being made toward the solution of the diplo- 
matic phase of the canal problem, and with the bank- 
ruptcy of the French Company public interest died 
down, not to be revived till the outbreak of the Spanish- 
American War in 1898. 



156. Summary of the Period. 

The period of 1877 to 1897 closed, therefore, as it had 
begun, with the attention of the country centred upon 
its business expansion and the problems of government 
arising in consequence; and even as between these two 
themes of interest, business held the centre of the sta^^e. 
Indeed, it was noted by foreign observers that American 
publicists were prevailingly disposed to accept as inevi- 
table, whether they approved them or not, developments 
which a minimum of governmental control permitted in 
the field of commerce and trade. It is not impossible 
that there is a direct psychological connection between 
the national self-assertion represented by the Spanish- 
American War and the more aggressive action on the 
part of the government which has been manifested since 
that event. 



328 The New United States, [§§ 157, 158. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER 
(1898-1909). 

157. The War with Spain. 

The history of the war with Spain affords, from the 
American point of view, several contrasts and contra- 
dictions. In bringing it on political sensationalism 
triumphed shamelessly over the orderly procedure of 
diplomacy, but at its termination a programme of gen- 
erosity almost unexampled among nations was carried to 
completion, and the innuendoes of cynicism and the coun- 
sels of selfishness were alike rebuffed. The intervention 
in Cuba which caused the war was based upon the premise 
that the United States occupied a peculiar position in the 
Western Hemisphere, but the outcome of the war was to 
make the United States a world power. Finally, in the 
conduct of the war, the efficiency of the navy was brought 
into rather too high a light, if anything, by the contrast- 
ing ineptitude with which the sister service was directed. 

158. Steps leading to the Intervention in Cuba. 

Geographically Cuba occupies about the same relative 
position to the United States that Ireland does to Great 
Britain, or Corea to Japan. It is hardly strange there- 
fore that it was a maxim of American diplomacy, even 
from the days of Jefferson, that Spain's control of that 
island must not be allowed to pass to a stronger power 
and more formidable neighbor. The South later mani- 



1868-1898.] Steps to Intervention in Cuba, 329 

fested an interest in Cuba as a possible conquest to slav- 
ery, but southern eagerness was more than matched by 
Attitude of northern suspicion. In 1868 the Ten Years 
the United War broke out in the island, and for the first 

States to- . -^ 1 A • • • r . 

ward Cuba time a United American opinion was free to 
in the past, conccm itself with the wrongs of the Cuban 
people under Spanish rule. Americans also held con- 
siderable property in the island and carried on a consid- 
erable commerce with it, and for a number of years 
American intervention seemed likely. But in 1878 the 
insurrection suddenly collapsed and a precarious peace 
was renewed, to last until 1895. 

At the outset of the insurrection of 1895 President 
Cleveland gave solemn warning of the intention of the 
United States to live up to its full duty toward Spain as 
a friendly power, engaged in repressing domestic revolt ; 
and it may be said that until intervention actually came 
this promise was kept, both by the administration that 
made it and its successor, though the diflEiculty of so 
doing, on account of our proximity to Cuba, of the dispo- 
sition of the insurgents to look for American assistance, 
_ . and especially of the sympathetic attitude of 

of the Cuban the vast majority of Americans toward Cuban 
insurrection, aspirations, was indeed very great. Spain, on 
the other hand, manifested for some time the utmost ob- 
tuseness in the matter of attempting to conciliate Ameri- 
can sentiment. Early in 1896 General Weyler came out 
to Cuba, and at once issued his famous reconcentration 
order, the carrying out of which, in the province of Ha- 
vana alone, was later estimated by Consul General Lee 
to have brought death to fifty thousand persons and desti- 
tution and disease to as many more. Both in Congress 
and in the party conventions this year the cause of Cuban 
independence carried the day almost without opposition, 
while in his final message President Cleveland foreshad- 



330 The New U^iited States, [§ 158. 

owed the possibility of intervention with considerable ex- 
plicitness. Still more pointed were the protests which 
the new administration began to enter at Madrid against 
Weyler's policies, but which the Spanish ministry met 
with jaunty argumentation. At this point Senor Sagasta 
became prime minister of Spain, and at once Spanish pol- 
icy began to reveal larger knowledge of the elements of 
the situation. In his December message, accordingly, 
President McKinley was able to report that Weyler had 
been recalled, that the reconcentration policy had been 
mitigated, and that autonomy had been offered to the 
Cuban people. 

But long since, the fate of Cuba had passed out of the 
custody of kings and cabinets. The insurgents would 
have nothing to do with autonomy, and they were encour- 
aged in this attitude by the fact that in the United States 
public opinion was now under the lurid spell of the " Yel- 
low Press," the arch exponent of which had, according 
to rumor, sworn at the beginning of 1898 to involve the 
United States and Spain in war within ninety days. If so, 
fate worked hand and glove with him in a most singular 
fashion. In the columns of a New York paper of Febru- 
ary Q there was published a letter from Senor 

Growing "^ '■ 

irritation Dupuy dc Lomc, the Spanish mmister at 
^jS'tlT ^^^ Washington, to a friend in Cuba, in which the 
States and writer, besides characterizing McKinley as a 
P^^°- "bidder for the admiration of the crowd," 

seemed to reveal that certain negotiations he had entered 
into with our government regarding a commercial treaty 
were intended merely to keep the United States "inter- 
ested." Forced to admit the genuineness of the publica- 
tion, Senor de Lome at once asked and received his recall, 
and by February 14, the incident was closed, at least offi- 
cially. Next day the battleship " Maine," which had been 
visiting at Havana since January 25, was shattered by an 



1868-1898.] Steps to hitervention in Cuba. 331 

explosion, and two hundred and sixty-six of her crew were 
killed. On March 14 Congress voted an emergency fund 
of fifty millions of dollars to be expended by the Presi- 
dent at his own discretion. Three days later Senator 
Proctor of Vermont gave a harrowing and widely pub- 
lished account to the Senate of things he had seen on a 
recent tour of Cuba, the vestiges of reconcentration ; and 
four days after that a naval court of inquiry, which had 
been conducting an investigation of the " Maine " disaster 
on the spot, attributed it to the explosion of a submarine 
mine, — a verdict which was flatly contradicted by a 
Spanish board of inquiry on the following day. 

Meantime the new Spanish ministry, by no means unin- 
formed of the rapid development of the war movement in 
the United States, had begun to evince the strongest dis- 
position to go any possible length to secure a diplomatic 
adjustment of the questions at issue between it and our 
government. Finally, April 4, the administration con- 
verted its suggestion of an armistice for Cuba into a 
demand, accompanied by the statement that within forty- 
eight hours the President would lay matters before Con- 
gress. On April 6, however, the representatives of the 
powers comprising the " concert of Europe " waited upon 
the President in a body in the interests of peace, and the 
President withheld his message. Similar pressure, added 
to the Pope's influence, was now brought to bear upon the 
Spanish ministry in behalf of a suspension of hostilities 
in Cuba, with the result that on April 10 Secretary of 
State Day was informed that General Blanco, Weyler's 
successor, had been ordered to grant it. The American 
minister at Madrid, General Woodford, in communicating 
with Washington next day, expressed the view that the 
surrender of the Spanish government was complete, and 
hoped that nothing wouid now be done to humiliate 
Spain. It also seems Ukely that President McKinley 



332 The New United States. [§§ 158, 159. 

was similarly minded. Nevertheless, that same day, the 
message that had been held over the head of the Spanish 
Intervention government for a week was sent in. It merely 
and war. alluded to the latest communication from the 
Spanish government, and requested, " in the name of hu- 
manity, in the name of civilization, in behalf of endan- 
gered American interests, which give us the right and 
the duty to speak and act," authority to use the army 
and navy in bringing peace to Cuba. Nine days later, 
the President signed a joint resolution, asserting Cuba to 
be of right " free and independent," the duty of the 
United States to demand relinquishment of the island by 
the government of Spain, and, finally, a disclaimer for the 
United States of "any disposition or intention to exercise 
authority, jurisdiction, or control over said island except 
for the pacification thereof," and " its determination, when 
that is accomplished, to leave the government and control 
of the island to its people." On April 25 a second reso- 
lution declared that war between the United States and 
Spain had been in existence since April 21. 

159. The Spanish-American War. 

Three events cover the important naval and military 
operations of the Spanish-American War : Dewey's de- 
struction of the Spanish fleet at Manila on May i, the 
destruction of Cervera's fleet at Santiago by the vessels 
of the fleet blockading that place on July 3, and the in- 
vestment of Santiago by the army under General Shafter. 
When the war broke out. Commodore Dewey had already, 
in accordance with orders of some two months earlier, 
gathered most of the vessels of the Asiatic Station at 
Hong Kong, and here the squadron lay, fitting itself the 
while for battle, till April 24, when it received orders to 
proceed to the Philippine Islands and to "capture or 



1898.] The Spanish- American War. ^ 333 

destroy the Spanish fleet." Three days later Dewey 
sailed, arriving at the entrance of Manila Bay the evening 
Dewey at of April 30, and next morning off the city of 
Manila. Manila itself. Though the battle that ensued 

was an entirely one-sided affair as far as the relative 
strength of the squadrons engaged is concerned, Dewey 
must be admitted nevertheless to have shown great courage 
in risking the perils of the harbor and the fire of shore 
batteries of unknown capacity, while his marksmen must 
of course be credited with the most extraordinary accu- 
racy and thoroughness. The battle began at about five in 
the morning and was continued till half past seven, when. 
the Americans withdrew for breakfast. At a quarter past 
eleven the work was resumed, and an hour and a half 
later was finished, most of the Spanish vessels being 
either sunk or on fire. The Spanish loss was three 
hundred an eighty-one killed, the American loss but 
seven slightly wounded. 

Operations began in the West Indies with the blockade 
of the coast of Cuba from Bahia Honda to Cardenas, by 
the North Atlantic fleet under Captain Sampson. At the 
same time a " flying squadron " was placed under Com- 
modore Schley to await at Hampton Roads the Spanish 
fleet, which, it was rumored, was headed for the West 
Indies; and a "patrol squadron," principally of "con- 
verted" merchantmen, which the government was acquir- 
ing at that time in large numbers, was organized to keep 
the eastern cities reassured. The Spanish 
fleet in squadron in question was that of Admiral 

West Indian ^ervera, which after leaving the Cape Verde 

waters, ' ° . 

Islands on April 29, and disappearing from 
view for more than a fortnight, suddenly hove in sight off 
Martinique on May 12, but only to plunge forthwith into 
the same mysterious invisibihty for about the same length 
of time again. Meanwhile Sampson, in an endeavor to as- 



334 ^^^ New United States. [§ 159. 

certain Cervera's whereabouts, had steamed to San Juan, 
Porto Rico, and back, and Schley had proceeded from Key 
West to Cienfuegos, thence to Santiago, and thence for 
two days back toward Key West, in what later became 
famous as his " retrograde movement." Finally, on 
May 28, having the previous day received very confident 
word from the Navy Department that Cervera was in 
Santiago, Schley set about for that place, where he insti- 
tuted a blockade the same night, pending the arrival of 
Admiral Sampson. 

The blockade continued for over a month, its general 
lack of episode being relieved by the magnificent heroism 
of Lieutenant Hobson, who with seven seamen took the 
collier " Merrimac " into the entrance of Santiago harbor, 
and there sunk her. The idea was to " bottle up " the 
blockaded squadron, but the attempt failed ; and on July 2 
the Spanish admiral, acting under positive orders from 
General Blanco, who feared that the approach of the 
American lines upon the town would render the position 
of the vessels untenable, sallied forth to do bat- 

Destruction .it i 

of Cervera's tie With if necessary, but to elude if possible, a 
®^*" fleet of overwhelming strength but of supposed 

inferior speed. The result of the battle was as conclu- 
sive as that of Manila, but the identity of the hero of the 
occasion was a matter of uncertainty, and soon of acri- 
monious controversy. On the one hand, it was pointed 
out that Admiral Sampson, having gone that morning to 
Siboney to confer with General Shafter, had not been in 
the vicinity of the battle till it was practically over. But, 
on the other hand, it was rejoined that Admiral Schley, 
the second in command, had not given a single order in 
the entire course of the fight, save to the captain of his 
flagship. A court of inquiry was instituted to compose 
the dispute, which was fast becoming a serious scandal, 
but so far as what in public estimation was the main 



1898.] The Spanish- American War. 335 

matter in dispute was concerned, things were left at the 
conclusion of the inquiry in a worse maze than ever. The 
verdict of history was probably rendered by President 
Roosevelt when he called the battle of Santiago " a cap- 
tains' fight." 

No small share of the effectiveness of the navy was 
due to the efficiency of the Navy Department. In the 
case of the War Department, however, organized to su- 
pervise a force of twenty-five thousand, such efficiency was 
scarcely to be expected and certainly was not realized. Of 
, ^ . the two hundred volunteer regiments that re- 

Inefnciency , , , x-. • i » n i . i 

of the War sponded to the President s call, the vast number 
Department. ^gj.g j^gp^ ^^j- inland camps, but some, including 
the Rough Riders with its mixture of Indians, cowboys, 
and collegians, were taken to Tampa on the west coast of 
Florida, and there organized, with a great part of the 
regular army, into the Fifth Army Corps. The selection 
of Tampa was very unfortunate, since the bureaus at 
Washington were in no condition to supplement its nat- 
ural inaccessibility with efficient service. The troops 
could not get their mail, they remained clad in woollens 
till they got back from Cuba, and disease soon appeared 
among them in serious forms. Likewise, arrangements 
for the departure to Cuba displayed little prevision on the 
part of those in charge. The expedition of seventeen 
thousand spent nearly a week in effecting a confused em- 
barkment, another week in delay on account of rumors 
that Spanish war vessels were in the vicinity, a third 
week in the voyage to the island, and, finally, parts of 
three days in disembarkment, for which no preparation 
had been made. 

From Daiquiri, the point of landing, the advance upon 
Santiago to the westward was at once begun, so that by 
June 3 the American forces found El Caney on their 
right and San Juan Hill on their left. It was the capture 



33^ The New United States. [§§ 159, 160. 

of the former by Lawton and of the latter by the Rough 
Riders and the first and tenth regiments of Wood's bri- 
gade that prompted Blanco's order compelling Cervera to 
leave harbor ; and, in turn, it was the destruction of the 
Santiago Spanish fleet that enabled Sampson to bom- 
captured. \)2x6. Santiago at will until its surrender, July 
17. The yellow fever was by this time making the most 
terrifying inroads among our troops, so that it becomes 
impossible to escape the impression that Blanco's order, 
which certainly hastened the end of the siege, was a great 
piece of good luck for our military prestige. The army, 
however, was not even yet secure, but seemed likely to be 
sacrificed to ofiicial red tape. Not until August 4, and 
then only in consequence of a "round robin" from the 
brigade commanders and medical staff, setting forth at 
length its desperate situation, was the order given for its 
removal to the United States. Meantime, in a campaign 
which was hardly more than a parade, General Miles had 
overrun Porto Rico with an expedition of about seventeen 
thousand men and at a loss of three. 



160. Peace Terms. 

The day following the surrender of Santiago, the Span- 
ish government authorized the French ambassador at 
Washington to approach the American government upon 
the subject of peace. The message was conveyed to the 
President by M. Cambon on July 26, and four days later 
the President made formal reply, in which he outlined 
Peace the terms of peace to be the immediate evacu- 

overtures. ation of Cuba by Spain, the cession of Porto 
Rico and one of the Ladrones, and, finally, the occupation 
by the United States of ''the city, bay, and harbor of 
Manila, pending a treaty which should determine the 
control, disposition, and government of the PhiHppines." 



i898-i899-] Peace Terms. 337 

The initial reply of the Spanish government being unsat- 
isfactory, Secretary Day on August 10 presented again 
the same demands, but in a form which M. Cambon un- 
derstood to be final. Thereupon the Spanish government 
gave way, and authorized M. Cambon to agree to the 
appointment of commissioners who should convene at 
Paris on or before October 18 and there arrange terms 
of peace. 

The two principal questions before the peace commis- 
sion were the arrangement of the Cuban debt, which the 
Spanish representatives vainly strove to saddle on the 
United States or Cuba, and the disposition of the Philip- 
pines. The Philippine question was the more perplexing 
in that the actual situation in those islands had been con- 
siderably altered by the capture of Manila by General 
Merritt the very day following the signature of the peace 
protocol, and also since both that instrument and the 
subsequent instructions to our commissioners showed 
most plainly that the President himself was not yet " out 
of the woods " on the subject. On the one hand, there- 
fore, we find the Spanish commissioners insisting that the 
protocol contemplated only the temporary occupation of 
The ques- Manila by the United States, and, on the other 
tionofthe hand, the American commissioners divided 
of the Phil- among themselves as to whether to take all or 
ippines. leave all or take some and leave some. At 

last, however, President McKinley was ready to read the 
oracle of public opinion, — somewhat carefully instructed 
in his own preferences, one is tempted to believe, — and 
found it to favor the cession of the entire group to the 
United States, which, accordingly, the American commis- 
sioners were directed to demand on October 26. The 
demand was at first based on alleged "conquest," but 
eventually the United States had to agree to "purchase " 
the islands for twenty millions of dollars. The Treaty of 

22 



338 The New United States. [§§ i6o, i6i. 

Peace was ratified by the Senate after a month's debate 
on February 6, 1899, — an important factor in securing 
the ratification being the attitude of Mr. Bryan, who was 
willing to see the Phihppines temporarily annexed to the 
United States in order that their eventual fate might fur- 
nish an issue for the campaign of 1900. 

161. Congress! and the New Dependencies. 

It turned out that Mr. Bryan had reckoned without his 
host, more or less. For it is the habit of the American 
people to reduce questions of policy to questions of con- 
stitutional law, and in that form to take them into court 
for solution. Whether Congress, in legislating for alien 
inhabitants of tropical islands was to be hampered at 
every turn by a Constitution designed for English-speak- 
ing people of the temperate zone or v/hether it was to be 
allowed its own best discretion in the matter 
tution doeV was, in truth, essentially the same question as 
not follow whether the United States was to retain those 

the nag. 

islands at all. Fortunately, the result of the 
decision in Downes vs. Bidwell^ in which the Supreme 
Court held that Porto Rico is not a part of the United 
States, within the contemplation of the Constitution — 
until at least Congress should extend the Constitution to 
that island — was to leave Congress with a free hand. 
This decision overrode an earlier dictum or two, as for 
example one in the Dred Scott Decision, but it followed 
very closely the entire logic of Congressional legislation 
upon the subject of territories from the outset of our 
government. 

Vested, then, with a free hand, Congress turned to the 
task of providing governments for the Philippines and 
Porto Rico and for Hawaii, which had finally been an- 
nexed to the United States by joint resolution while the 
war with Spain was still waging. 



1896-1899-] Congress: New Dependencies. 339 

The difficulties presented by the case of the Philippines 
were obviously the greatest. For in addition to the fact 
that here was a population of nearly eight milHons, scat- 
tered over some three hundred islands, and 
of'the" '^^ divided into eighty tribes speaking a score 
Philippine Qj- more of dialects, a population largely Chris- 
tian, but partly savage, and partly pagan 
Mohammedans, — in addition to all this terrifying confu- 
sion of affiliation, tongue, and cult, there was also the fact 
that a great section of the population of the principal 
islands, belonging to the more advanced tribes, were 
engaged in a revolt against their new sovereigns, both 
the causes and the merits of which were enveloped in 
much obscurity. 

At the head of the Philippine revolt was Aguinaldo, 
the leader and also the betrayer of a similar uprising 
against Spanish authority in 1896. Dewey's intention, 
at least at first, was to make an ally of Aguinaldo, who 
in fact returned to the Philippines at the American 
_. p, .. commander's invitation on the United States 
ippine gunboat " McCulloch." General Anderson 

^^^° '■ was also most cordial toward the " General," 

whom he desired to have " cooperate with us in military 
operations against the Spanish forces." This was early 
in July. Three weeks later General Merritt arrived with 
quite different views of Aguinaldo and the " Philippine 
Republic," and the course of events began which led to 
the first actual exchange of blows between the American 
and Philippine forces early in February, 1899. Till the 
end of 1899 the warfare was more or less regular, but 
finding that he had not the forces with which to meet the 
more than fifty thousand troops of the American army, 
Aguinaldo decided in November to disband his forces 
and to resort to guerilla fighting. For two years, accord- 
ingly, lightly armed bands of natives, thoroughly ac- 



340 The New United States. [§ i6i. 

quainted with every avenue of escape from pursuit, ranged 
over the provinces of the principal islands, visiting every 
sort of atrocity upon the Americans who fell into their 
hands and upon all natives friendly to the Americans. 
Eventually, by methods of organization and, unfortu- 
nately, sometimes by methods of fighting as well, similar 
to those of their foes, the American forces brought this 
phase of the war to an end also, just three years from the 
inception of hostilities. 

Meanvv^hile, though until the passage of the army ap- 
propriation bill of March, 190 1, with the Spooner Amend- 
ment, all authority in the islands rested upon the purely 
military basis of the President's power as commander-in- 
chief, some important steps had been taken toward the 
setting up of civil government. The first Phihppine 
commission sent out by the President early in 1897 was 
solely an investigating body, but its successor 
mentofthe of the year following, of which William H. 
Philippines. rj,^£^ ^^ Qj^j^ ^^g chairman, was under instruc- 
tion to organize civil authority as rapidly as possible, 
beginning with the communes and municipalities and 
proceeding upward through the provinces, to the out- 
lining finally of a central government. Under the pre- 
sent constitution of the islands, set on foot with the 
inauguration of Mr. Taft as first Civil Governor on July 
21, 1 90 1, and completely outlined in the Phihppine Gov- 
ernment Act of July I, 1902, the Philippine Islands have 
a governor, an executive council consisting of four Amer- 
ican members — the heads of the executive departments 
— and three Filipino members, all appointed, and, since 
1907, an elective legislative assembly of eighty-one mem- 
bers, which together with the executive council comprises 
the legislature of the islands. There is also a system of 
courts, topped by the Supreme Court, which consists, at 
the present moment, of three Filipino and two Amer- 



1896-1899-] Congress: New Dependencies. 341 

ican justices. The central government of the islands 
diplays two principal features : first, the vast discretion- 
ary and semi-legislative powers vested in its executive, 
and, secondly, the large control which it exercises over 
the local governments, with the exception of that of the 
Zulu Islands, — the Mohammedan slaveholding portion 
of the archipelago, — which is of special creation and is 
left largely to its own devices. For the rest, local gov- 
ernment in the Philippines reposes largely upon the foun- 
dations laid by the Spaniards. 

It is of course impossible at this date to make an 
assured evaluation of American rule in the Philippines, or 
even of its principal features. On the one hand, in pur- 
chasing their lands of the Friars, some four hundred 
thousand acres of the best lands of the islands, and throw- 
ing them open to acquisition by the natives, the Amer- 
ican government has received in hardly any quarter aught 
but praise. Also, its policy of refusing land and timber 
concessions of large dimensions, though it may have hin- 
dered a certain species of " development," has not usually 
been the object of disinterested criticism. On the other 
hand, our tariff policy toward the Philippines and the 
extension of our coastwise trade laws thither both smack 
strongly of exploitation, while the policy that 
American"^ has been pursued in road building is also open 
rule in the ^o telling criticism at some points. Undoubt- 

iippines. ^^^^ ^^ principal feature of American rule 
has been its emphasis upon education. It is gener- 
ally agreed that the half million young Filipinos who 
have crowded the schools more than three years back 
are receiving large benefits from the American rule, but 
it has been urged that this benefit is unnecessarily cur- 
tailed by the policy of confining instruction to the English 
language. The criticism is not sound. If the Filipino 
people are ever to come into a beneficial enjoyment of that 



342 The New South. [§§ i6r, 162. 

self-government toward which American rule avowedly 
looks, they must have a language, — and this, it is very 
evident, can be neither one of their native dialects nor yet 
Spanish. Why then, should it not be English, with its 
guaranty of communication with ourselves and partici- 
pation in our thought ? 

The government of Porto Rico was provided for by 
the Foraker Act of April 12, 1900, Being much the same 
Porto Rican ^^^ Outline as that of the Philippine Islands, it 
discontent. (joes not allow the people of Porto Rico that 
participation in political affairs which they apparently 
desire. 

162. Establishment of Government in Cuba. 

But the original purpose of the war with Spain was to 
give Cuba independence and self-government. With 
what fidelity and success has this programme been ad- 
hered to ? Spain gave way to the United States on New 
Year's Day, 1899, and from then till May, 1902, the United 
States, acting through General Wood, commander of the 
^, XT . J American forces stationed there, exercised 

The United . , . . ^ i rr^i i i , 

States as its trustceship in Cuba. The world has not 
trustee. often seen a more efficient government nor 

one more devoted to public service. Its achievements 
might be detailed at length, but it will suffice to mention 
its success in organizing the public school system of 
Cuba, and its still more notable success in measures of 
sanitation, and that at the close of a period of war, disease, 
and famine, Havana found itself free from yellow fever 
for the first time in nearly a century and a half. 

The convention that was to give Cuba a constitution 
assembled at Havana early in November, 1900. In its 
principal task it met with little difficulty, since its mem- 
bers were quite unanimous for that form of government 
which is universally outlined in the constitutions of 



1899-1904-] Government in Cuba. 343 

American republics. But what were to be the future re- 
lations of the new republic to the United States? This 
question the convention at first endeavored to evade until 
it was forced upon it by the American Congress through 
The Cuban ^^^ ^^^^^ Amendment to the Army Bill of 
constitutional March, 1901. By this measure the President 
andX'pratt of the United States was directed to leave 
Amendment, (^ub^ to itsclf whcD — and Only when — it 
should establish a constitution providing that Cuba should 
never impair its independence or territorial integrity by 
treaty, nor contract pecuniary obligations which it could 
not meet from its ordinary revenues, and that it should 
recognize the right of the United States to intervene at 
any time to secure its independence or orderly govern- 
ment. After three months and more of discussion the 
convention adopted the Piatt Amendment as a part of the 
Cuban constitution. Two years later the same stipula- 
tions were embodied in a Treaty which was ratified by 
the United States July 7, 1904- 

Meantime, with the inauguration of President Palma 
May 20, 1902, the new government had been set a-going. 
It lasted only through one administration. For toward 
the close of September, 1906, conditions in the island 
forced the United States to assume control once more, — 
a control only recently relaxed. Undoubtedly the insta- 
bility of political conditions in Cuba is due in part to po- 
litical inexperience, and in part to the Latin temperament, 
but a third factor of importance is the absence of any 
considerable class in the community that is fairly self- 
sufficient economically. Sugar, which is the 
SdpoMcai principal product of the island, was, after a 
instability gross delay due to the presence of a powerful 
"" ^"''^' beet sugar interest on the floors of Congress, 
accorded entrance to the United States at a reduction of 
twenty per cent of the Dingley rates. This was in De- 



344 1^^^ New United States. [§§ 162, 163. 

cember, 1903, and since that date trade between the United 
States and Cuba has grown considerably. The depend- 
ence, however, of the island upon a principal crop, the 
disadvantage its planters are under in competing with 
the bounty-nourished sugar producers of Germany, and 
the set-back that the industry had to overcome from the 
late war, have thus far, it would seem, kept the Cuban 
people from showing plainly just what they are ca- 
pable of. 

163. The United States in the Orient. 

No problem which the outcome of the Spanish-Ameri- 
can war Ihrust upon it has the United States met with 
more conspicuous success than the assumption of its new 
role among nations. At the outset of the war, though 
England was friendly, on the Continent, save possibly in 
Russia, the United States was confronted by a solid wall 
of hostile opinion, and indeed, as has subse- 
the attitude quently transpired, there was at one time some 
to^rdThe ^^^^ ^^ ^ movement on foot among European 
United cabinets looking to intervention in Spain's be- 

half. It failed, but the jealousy that under- 
lay it found expression now and then in more petty ways. 
In Manila Bay, for example, Admiral Diedrichs of the 
German squadron, which had been dispatched thither 
after Dewey's victory for no adequate reason at all, be- 
came so officious that Dewey offered him " a fight, if he 
wanted it," with the result of bringing such annoyances 
to an end. This, however, was early in the war. As the 
war wore on, and the United States revealed its naval 
superiority to its adversary more and more strikingly, the 
attitude of Europe began to change, and by the close of 
the war more than one continental government was ready 
and even eager to court American favor. 

One of the principal reasons that President McKinley 



1899-1908-] United States in the Orient, 345 

had in mind for demanding the Philippines was furnished 
by the fact that at this time the Empire of China seemed 
to be tottering to its fall and that the powers of Europe 
were even then parcelling out the prospective spoils. 
We already had considerable trade interests with the 
Orient, and the President was persuaded that these 
might be largely increased if we could but acquire a ves- 
The "open tibule thereto, somewhat similar to that which 
door" policy. England had had at Hong Kong for years, 
or that which Germany had just acquired at Kiao Chau. 
But, the Philippines once acquired, the very example 
which had suggested their acquisition seemed now of 
dangerous import for American interests. For if, in addi- 
tion to obtaining naval stations and ports of entry to the 
Chinese Empire, the powers of Europe should proceed to 
partition its whole vast area and population among them- 
selves, the next step would naturally be the exclusion by 
each of all others from its respective allotment ; and the 
upshot of the matter would be that the United States 
would find itself possessed of the Philippines indeed, but, 
so far as Chinese trade was concerned, more entirely out 
in the cold than ever. In brief, the acquisition of the 
PhiHppines carried with it as a corollary American cham- 
pionship of the integrity of China and of the " open 
door " to Chinese trade. 

At first the American policy made little headway, the 
responses of all the powers save England to Mr. Hay's 
note of September, 1899, on the subject of the open door 
being evasive in the extreme. Events, however, were play- 
ing into the hands of our diplomacy. In 1900 a Chinese 
patriotic society, called the " Boxers," began an anti-for- 
eign agitation, the consequence of which was the assas- 
sination of the German ambassador and the investment 
of the foreign legations for nearly two months by a horde 
of Boxers, generously sprinkled with Chinese imperial 



34^ The New United States. [§ 163. 

troops. As speedily as possible a relief expedition, to 
which each of the powers contributed its contingent, was 
assembled at Taku, whence it proceeded to 
Hay and Tientsin. Meantime, diplomacy had been at 
the Boxer work endeavorins: to find out whether the 

revolt. '^ 

members of the legations, from whom not 
a word reached the outside world for over a month, yet 
survived. The other nations assumed offhand, what was 
more or less true, that the Chinese Imperial Court was 
sympathetic with the Boxers. Mr. Hay, however, adopted 
from the outset the tactics of treating the Chinese gov- 
ernment as acting, prima facie at least, in good faith. 
The result of this method was that on July 20 the gov- 
ernment at Washington was able to give to the world 
positive assurance as to the safety of the members of the 
legations. The relief expedition now moved forward, and 
on August 14 the siege that the Boxers had begun June 
20 was raised. 

The first consequence of the Boxer revolt was to give 
plain warning to itching palms that China was not to be 
rifled with impunity ; its second consequence was to put 
the United States in so favorable a position at Peking as 
to create of the combined influence of the United States, 
Great Britain, and Japan, a " moral balance of power," so 
to speak, in favor of the integrity of China and the open 
door, and to this " moral balance " was added the weight 
of arms, when Japan expelled Russia from Manchuria. 
And so concludes the first stage of our diplomatic struggle 
for the open door and Chinese integrity. 

During the second stage, which ensued immediately, 
Japan, the earlier ally of our purposes, seemed to be for a 
period our antagonist. For she it was who was now in 
the saddle in the Far East, and in a position accordingly 
to grant or withhold from others, as favors to be bar- 
gained for, what earlier she had claimed for herself as 



1899-190S.] United States m the Orient, 347 

rights. The inevitable temptations of such a position 
were of course palpable to all, but for the moment some 
reliance was had in the case of the United States upon 
what was deemed the debt of gratitude owing from Japan, 
both for American sympathy during the war and the hand 
that the President of the United States had taken in end- 
ing it. For President Roosevelt's mediation, 
States a"d leading to the Peace of Portsmouth, was not 
Japan since only a most interesting enterprise as illustra- 
tive again of the new position of the United 
States among nations, but for the Japanese it was an in- 
terposition of Providence, coming as it did at the moment 
when their success was as yet undimmed by a single re- 
versal but when also their finances were on the very verge 
of prostration. Gratitude, however, is a most feeble staff 
to rely upon in international politics, and in this case it 
was doubly apt to prove treacherous, since in the months 
ensuing upon the Peace of Portsmouth a most irritating 
issue was slowly preparing between the United States 
and Japan, which, though it was quite unrelated in its 
own character to questions of trade or of policies touch- 
ing China, would very conceivably disturb the harmony 
of view of American and Japanese statesmen upon these 
questions. 

Since 1894 Japan has had a treaty with the United 
States guaranteeing her subjects in the latter country the 
same rights of residence that American citizens them- 
selves enjoy. In October, 1906, the Japanese govern- 
ment entered complaint at Washington that the city of San 
Francisco, whose board of education were taking measures 
to segregate children of Oriental parentage in a separate 
school, was violating this treaty. The attitude of the Jap- 
anese government was in point of fact not at all tenable, 
since the courts of this country have repeatedly ruled that 
certain classes of our own citizens may be so segregated. 



348 The New United States. [§ 163. 

Nevertheless, the President, shrewdly discerning that the 
school question concealed the larger issue of Japanese 
exclusion, at once asserted witli characteristic 
Fra^ncisco cmphasis his determination to hold the govern- 
schooi ment to the consistent fulfilment of its obliga- 

question. . . t> t • i 

tions to other nations. Meantime a boycott 
of American goods by Chinese merchants was traced 
by authoritative observers to Japanese instigation, and 
was asserted to be ominous of a settled policy on the 
part of Japan to foil, by concealed and devious methods, 
the essential purpose of engagements which she could 
not overtly and officially cast aside. Eventually the 
issues between the United States and Japan have, re- 
ceived much more amicable settlement than could at first 
have been anticipated. The San Francisco authorities 
have desisted from the policy that was so odious to Japan- 
ese pride ; by its own action the government of Japan has 
stopped the coming of Japanese laborers to the United 
States; and finally, by the exchange of indentical notes, 
November 30 last (1908), the American and Japanese 
governments pledged their continued fidelity to the main- 
tenance of the integrity of China and of equal commer- 
cial opportunity throughout the Chinese Empire for all 
nationalities. 

Likewise, whatever apprehension may for a time have 
been felt on account of the boycott for our influence in 
China has been since allayed. When, in the course of 
his tour of the Orient in 1907, Secretary Taft visited 
Shanghai, he was received by the representatives of mer- 
Recent re- chant guilds from various quarters of the Em- 
lationsof pj^g ^yj^h a sincerity and heartiness of enthu- 

the United \ , i , , . r i ^ • ^ 

States and siasm that was absolutely unique for the Orient 
China. ^£ QC(.j(jental acquaintance. A little later the 

President urged upon Congress that it return our share 
of the indemnity that was exacted from China at the 



i899-t9oS.] United States in the Orient. 349 

time of the Boxer uprising, save only such portion as 
compensated for actual damages ; and in due course this 
suggestion was acted upon. 

164. The Paoaama Canal. 

The open-door idea was Secretary Hay's ; the ideas 
that have governed our recent policy in the more famil- 
iar " sphere of influence " saved to us by the Monroe 
Doctrine and its supporting tradition — a tradition that 
has lost none of its vitality, moreover, however much of 
a "world power" we have become — are to be credited 
to President Roosevelt and Secretary Root ; or, to venture 
more definite specification, it is to Secretary Root that we 
owe our present method of dealing with our American 
neighbors, and it is to President Roosevelt that we owe 
the removal of all diplomatic obstacles to the building of 
the Panama Canal. 

The second Hay-Pauncefote Treaty — its predecessor 
having failed because of the refusal of the British gov- 
ernment to accept amendments that had been attached 
Abrogation ^° ^^ ^'^ the Senate — was signed November 
of the 18, 1901, and ratified by the Senate a month 

Buiwe?" later. It abrogated the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty 
Treaty. 2S^^^ though with some obscurity of language, 

gave the assent of Great Britain to exclusive control by 
the United States of any interoceanic canal to be built 
by the latter in the Western Hemisphere. 

But where was such canal to be built ? By a bill v/hich 

passed the House of Representatives all but unanimously, 

early in January, 1902, it was to be along what 

Selection ^^^ known as the Nicaragua Route; but in 

Panama the Senate an amendment offered by Senator 

route. 

Spooner was adopted, authorizing the Presi- 
dent to purchase the franchise and property of the 
French Company for a sum not to exceed forty millions of 



350 The New United States. [§ 164. 

dollars, and to acquire from Colombia, within a "rea- 
sonable time," the necessary territory, with jurisdiction, 
for the completion of a canal along the Panama route ; and 
with this amendment the House finally concurred by a 
majority nearly as large as that by which the original bill 
had been passed. 

But at this point a new diplomatic obstacle arose which 
seemed likely to prove as difficult to surmount as any of 
the old ones had been. On August 12, 1903, the Colom- 
bian Senate adjourned, after unanimously rejecting a 
convention providing for the transference to the United 
States, for a monetary consideration, of a canal zone 
across the Isthmus of Panama. The situation was seri- 
ous, for the " reasonable time " within which the Panama 
route must be adopted, if adopted at all, was rapidly 
Th re 1 - ^^zing away. At this juncture rumors began 
tion at to accumulate of an impending revolution on 

Panama. ^^ Isthmus agaiust Colombian authority, and 
on November 3 rumor was justified by events. It has 
been charged that this revolution, if not instigated from 
Washington, at least received encouragement from that 
quarter. Whether so or not, it was eagerly taken advan- 
tage of by the government as an opportunity to realize 
its own desires with reference to the Isthmus. On No- 
vember 6 the United States recognized the infant republic, 
and so introduced it into the family of nations, and on 
November 18 completed a treaty with it, whereby for ten 
millions of dollars and a future annuity the United States 
received practically sovereign control of a ten-mile strip 
The canal from Colon to Panama. In November, 1905, 
to-day. it ^as decided to construct a lock canal, a sea- 

level canal being the expensive alternative. Questions 
of management, labor, and sanitation interposed trying 
delays, but at last, we are officially assured, construction 
is now going rapidly forward. 



1901-1907.] United States : Latin America. 351 



165. The United States and Latin America. 

The policy of the Roosevelt administration with refer- 
ence to the Latin Americas centred about the necessity of 
reconciling with the Monroe Doctrine the growing dispo- 
sition of European creditor states to make forcible collec- 
tion of the debts due to them from the Latin-American 
republics. Though its reciprocal principle, confining the 
political interests of the United States to the Western 
Hemisphere, had obviously gone by the board, yet in its 
positive phase the Monroe Doctrine was never stronger 
than at the close of the Spanish-American War; and in- 
deed in 1 901 Germany, who was contemplating a seizure 
of Venezuelan custom-houses, accorded it formal recogni- 
tion as a principle of international law, — the first Eu- 
ropean state to do so. The form which Germany's 
recognition took was that of solemn assurance to the gcv 
ernment at Washington that she had no intention of mak- 
ing the slightest acquisition of territory in the Western 
Hemisphere. Despite such assurances, nevertheless, the 
possibility of a situation embarrassing to the United 
States was as evident as it was disquieting. Yet, if the 
United States was to lay claim to extraordinary rights, 
must it not assume the correlative responsibilities? It 
was in answer to this question that President Roosevelt 
propounded, in his message of December, 1902, his "big 
stick" theory, of the necessity that the United 

Oridn of the , , , . • ^ ^- i r^^ 

"big stick" States should exercise an mternationaJ police 
P^^^'^y- over those of its neighbors whose security 

under the Monroe Doctrine had become impunity. But 
it was not agreeable to Mr. Roosevelt to keep his ideas 
long in the crystalline form of theory, but rather to hasten 
to their solution in action. First by a convention, accord- 
ingly, and when the Senate failed to ratify that, by an 
** executive agreement," the President early in 1905 ap- 



352 The New United States, [§ 165. 

pointed a receiver of the customs for San Domingo, who 
proceeded to satisfy the rightful claims of urgent creditors, 
and so save San Domingo from the inconveniences of a 
" pacific blockade," such as Venezuela had recently suf- 
fered. But this method of meeting the dilemma confront- 
San ij^g \\va\.^ the President soon realized to be 

Domingo. unsatisfactory. For, in addition to the unpleas- 
antness with the Senate, from which he emerged trium- 
phant — that body having eventually ratified the agree- 
ment with San Domingo in the form of a treaty, — there 
were indications that the "big stick" poKcy was frighten- 
ing our neighbors and alienating their sympathies. 

The way out of the difficulty was finally found in 1907. 
In that year the second Hague Conference convened at 
the instance of President Roosevelt, — perhaps the most 
important single event in the history of International Law. 
In this conference the representatives of the United States, 
having at their back the representatives of most of the 
other American states, championed the idea first formu- 
lated by Senor Drago, the foreign minister of the Argen- 
„, , tine Republic, that creditor states ought to 

Hague proceed against their debtors forcibly only as 

Con erence. ^ |^g^ resort. The Conference adopted this 
view, and the arbitration, in the first instance, of pe'cuni- 
ary claims was made compulsory upon all signatories of 
the Hague Agreement. The United States thus achieved 
two objects, — it greatly promoted the cause of interna- 
tional arbitration, and it soothed Latin-American sensibil- 
ities. A great deal, moreover, was done in the furtherance 
of the latter purpose by Secretary Root's tour of South 
America in 1906. Meantime the idea of an international 
police has not entirely dropped out of the ken of our di- 
plomacy, but it now inclines to take the form of a concert 
between the United States and the more important Latin- 
American states for the guaranty of peace and order in 



1825-1903-] International Arbitration. 353 

the lesser states. This is the purport of the recent agree- 
ment between the states of Central America, of which the 
United States and Mexico are made joint guarantors. 



16G, International Arbitration. 

Besides adopting the Hague Convention, estabhshing 
an international Court of Arbitration and appearing as 
one of the parties to the first case coming before that 
tribunal, and negotiating a score and more of treaties 
providing for the reference to it of future diplomatic 
controversies, the United States, in 1903, showed its 
devotion to the cause of a peaceable settlement of inter- 
national disputes even more strikingly in consenting to 
the determination by a mixed commission of the Alaskan 
boundary. From 1825, the date of the treaty between 
Russia and Great Britain delimiting Russian America, 
The Alaskan down to 1 897, the date of the discovery of 
boundary. go\^ in the Klondike, the location of the boun- 
dary between Alaska and Canada had gone unquestioned ; 
and never was a claim made up more entirely out of 
whole cloth than that which Canada now suddenly brought 
forward in challenging this long-existent line. Fortu- 
nately, while the American and Canadian commissioners 
took their seats already convinced beyond the power of 
persuasion. Lord Alverstone, the British commissioner, 
was able to assume and maintain throughout a judicial 
attitude. The commissioners' decision, rendered by a 
vote of four to two, confirmed the contentions of the 
United. States in all essential points. 

167. President Roosevelt's Policies. 

Lament was sometimes made after the Spanish-Amer- 
ican War that the problems its outcome raised abroad 

23 



354 ^^^ iV"^z£/ United States, [§ 167. 

would work to distract attention from the greater problems 
awaiting solution at home. Events, however, have proved 
quite the contrary. It is as if, by a species of intellec- 
tual inertia, we, who had been only dawdling with home 
questions earlier, were now being fairly hurled from the 
outlying rim of lesser tasks into the central swirl of 
imperative ones. 

The Republican convention which met at Philadelphia 
June 20, 1900, under the domination of the triumvirate, 
Piatt, Quay, and Hanna, had three tasks before it, namely, 
to renominate President McKinley, to express its convic- 
tion that things were as they ought to be and should not 
be disturbed, and to retire from public life, by nominating 
him for Vice-President, the enfant terrible of the Repub- 
lican Party, Theodore Roosevelt, who was at that moment 
Governor of New York. On the first two points the 
convention was unanimous, and on the last 
pati^m there was only the strenuous but ineffectual 

vs. Dis- opposition of the victim himself. Since Mr. 

contcnta 

Bryan, who had been renominated by the 
Democrats, refused to recede from his financial heresies, 
he was defeated somewhat more decisively than he had 
been four years earlier, though the heavy vote that he 
still polled in the midst of undoubted prosperity afforded 
impressive evidence of a deep-seated discontent in the 
country. Indeed, even President McKinley, despite the 
"stand pat" platform upon which he ran, began sound- 
ing a faint reform note in his later utterances, — a fact 
the more significant from the pliable, accordant, baromet- 
ric temperament of the man. In September, 1901, Presi- 
dent McKinley was fatally shot, and Roosevelt became 
President. 

It is as yet quite too early to make final appraisement 
of President Roosevelt's administration, but a brief record 
may be ventured of certain more or less manifest results. 



1901-1908.] President Roosevelt's Policies. 355 

By the President's mediation in the great anthracite coal 
strike in October, 1902, the country was instructed to 
recognize that dangerous insolence of aggregated capital, 
that heedlessness of public rights, which is signified by 
the term " plutocracy" ; by the successful prosecution by 
Features ^^ government of the Northern Securities 
of the case in 1903, the Sherman Act was rescued 

adminis- from disusc and shown to be, if not itself an 

tration. adequate or certain measure for deahng with 

great capitalistic combinations, yet a powerful weapon 
in the hands of the executive with which to negotiate 
for such a measure from Congress ; by the Elkins Act 
of 1905, and the prosecutions that have ensued under 
it, railroad rebating has been rendered a relatively unprofi- 
table practice, attended with great risk; by the Hepburn 
Act the Interstate Commerce Commission has been re- 
called from failure and made a valuable administrative 
agency ; by the investigation of the Chicago stockyards, 
the public were taught the value of publicity and the 
serviceability of government as an inquisitorial and in- 
forming agency ; by the Pure Food Lav/ a scope of 
power over interstate commerce not often hinted at before 
was asserted successfully by the national government ; by 
the Public Land Policy of the administration the respon- 
sibility of the present to future generations was empha- 
sized, as by its other policies the responsibilty of capital 
to the community was insisted upon. 

It has been sometimes urged against Mr. Roosevelt's 
administration that it failed of institutional progress along 
any definite line. However this may be, all must admit 
that the chief legacy of this remarkable administration to 
TheRoose- the people of the United States is one of 
vdt creed. ideas. Mr. Roosevelt brought to office, to- 
gether with a thoroughly aggressive disposition to urge 
them, certain formulated notions. He believed that gov- 



35^ The New United States. [§§ i6S, 169. 

ernment, if informed and administered by experts, could 
be m.ade an agency for the advancement of the commun- 
ity ; he believed that there was still in the United States 
a large and, if properly led, dominant body of citizenship 
independent in its affiliations of either labor or capital ; 
he believed in the presidency as the natural and respon- 
sible, because sole, representative of that citizenship; 
and he believed, finally, in party as the necessary instru- 
ment of leadership. One can recognize the validity of 
many of the criticisms that have been levelled against 
Mr. Roosevelt's administration and still agree with Gov- 
ernor Hughes of New York in characterizing it as " an 
administration which has impressed the American people 
with the necessity for the correction of obvious evils and 
has stirred the American conscience." 



169. The United States after Eighty Years. 

In 1829 the American people had still a large part of 
the continent before them awaiting their conquest and pos- 
session ; by 1909 they had appropriated all of it that is 
likely to be theirs. In 1829 the country, homogeneous as 
to population, was seriously divided between geographical 
sections; by 1909 war, the facilities of transportation, the 
intricate relationships of an elaborate economic society, 
had conferred the unity of nationality upon a vastly 
more cosmopolitan United States. The position in the 
world, too, of the United States, the problems confronting 
its people, and the ideas available for the solution of 
those problems have all been greatly altered by the course 
of eight decades. What problems there were in 1829 
respecting the relation of government to wealth related 
entirely to the production of wealth ; to-day, in a com- 
munity in which perhaps one tenth of the population 
controls nine tenths of the wealth, such problems relate 
to the distribution of wealth. By such problems the 



1829-1909] After Eighty Years, 357 

American people, with their traditions of democracy on 
the one hand and their traditions of individuaHsm on the 
other, are sore distraught. At the same time, however, 
they are so, because they are minded to meet and deal 
with such issues both justly and conservatively. 



INDEX. 



ABE 

ABERDEEN, Lord, consents to 
opening of West India trade, 

85- ^ . 

Abolitionists, refused right of peti- 
tion, 114; position of, in campaign 
of 1844, 146 ; form Liberty party, 
146 ; principles of the, contrasted 
with principles of Free Soil party, 
166, 167 ; feeling of South with re- 
gard to, 1858, 204; relations of, 
with Republican party, i860, 209. 

Adams, John, character of the gov- 
ernment under, 10, 13; circum- 
stances of election of, 14. 

Adams, John Quincy, of the old 
school of public men, 10; nomi- 
nated for the presidency, 1824, 17 ; 
elected by the House, 18; effects 
of character of, on politics, 19; 
constitutionality of election of, 21 ; 
and Tenure of Office Act, 27 ; on 
Jackson's appointments to office, 
30 ; views of, obnoxious to the 
South, 39, 40; spokesman for 
Abolitionists in House, 114, 143 5 
heads protest against annexation 
of Texas, 165. 

African Colonization Society, organ- 
ization and purpose of the, 120. 
Agricultural character of the early 
growth of the country, 5—7, 15; 
exports, 1829, 50; system of the 
South, and slavery, 124 ; disad- 
vantage of slavery, 127, 128; 
system of the South and war re- 
sources, 247, 248. 
Aguinaldo, " General," 339. 



AMN 

Alabama, growth of population in, 
1830-1840, 108; secedes, 210; re- 
admitted to representation in Con- 
gress, 269. 

•'•Alabama' claims," nature and 
arbitration of, 278, 279. 

Alaska acquired by the United States 
from Russia, 272. 

Alaskan boundary, the, 353- 

Albany Regency, the, origin and 
functions of, 33. 

Alberstone, Lord, 353. 

•'Alexandria Government " of Vir- 
ginia, 25s, 256 ; undertakes recon- 
struction of Virginia, 258. 

Alien and Sedition Laws, 14. 

Altgeld, Governor, painful delibera- 
tion of, 304. 

Amendments : Thirteenth, proposed 
by Congress, 259; adopted, 260; 
Fourteenth, proposed by Con- 
gress, 265 ; rejected by Southern 
States, 266; adopted, 269; Fif- 
teenth, proposed by Congress, 
269; adopted, 270; Fourteenth 
and Fifteenth, enforced by penal 
legislation, 274; interpreted by 
Supreme Court, 275. 
American Anti-Slavery Society, for- 
mation of, 109; programme and 
purposes of, 121; first opposition 
to, 121. 
American party. See " Know 

Nothing " party. 
American Railways Union, the, 303. 
Amnesty Proclamation, Lincoln's, 

1 1863, 256; Johnson's, 1865,258. 



360 



Index, 



AMN 

Amnesty Act, General, of 1872, 274. 

Anderson, General, 339. 

Angell Treaty, the, 300. 

Annexation, first steps towards, of 
Texas, 143—145 ; desired by South- 
erners, 165, 188-190 ; of Cuba and 
Mexican territory proposed by Bu- 
chanan, 202. 

Antietam, battle of, 226 ; fiamishes 
opportunity for Lincoln's emanci- 
pation proclamation, 227. 

" Anti-Lecompton " Democrats, 200, 
201. 

Anti-Masons, formation of party of, 
62, 63 ; carry Vermont, 1832, 64 ; 
send J. Q. Adams to House of 
Representatives, 114. 

"Anti-Nebraska" group, composi- 
tion of, 187. 

Anti-slavery, agitation during Van 
Buren's term, 99, 100; American 
Society formed, 109 ; effect of, 
movement upon parties, 1830- 
1840, 114; antecedents of Aboli- 
tionist movement, 119-121; prin- 
cipal occasion of, movement, 121— 
123 ; programme of, 121 ; first 
opposition to, 121 ; moral advan- 
tage of, movement, 122 ; forces in 
House led by Giddings, 144 ; op- 
position to annexation of Texas, 
143, 144; effect on South, 204; 
relation of, to purposes of Repub- 
Kean party, 1S60, 209. 

Appointments, system of political, in 
New York and Pennsylvania, 20 ; 
Jackson's practice with regard to, 
26, 27. See also Civil service. 

Appomattox Court House, Lee sur- 
renders at, 237, 238.^ 

Appropriation, provision of confed- 
erate constitution regarding veto 
of individual items of, 243. 

Arista, Mexican general, defeated 
by Taylor at Palo Alto and Resaca 
de la Palraa, 150. 

Aristocracy, character of southern, 
106. 

Arkansas, admitted to Union, 1836, 
108; secedes, 219; reorganized 
tinder federal authority, 257 ;_ re- 
admission of, to representation, 
269 ; election troubles in, in 1874, 
276. 
Army, confederate, lack of arms and 
equipments by, 245, 246 ; _ early 
supplies for, 246 ; conscription 



BAN 

into, 246 ; resolution to enrol 

slaves in, 247 ; desertions from, 

251 ; hunger and sufferings of, 

252. 
Army, federal, state of, at opening 

of civil war, 220 ; conscription 

into, 228; size of, in civil war, 

244, 252. 
Army Appropriation Bill of March, 

1901, the, 292, 340, 343. 
Arrests, arbitrary, by Department of 

War, 254. 
Arsenals, federal, seized in the 

South, 213, 245. 
Arthur, Chester A., vetoes Rivers 

and Harbors Bill, 310; signs 

Pendleton Act, 321. 
Ashburton, Lord, negotiates treaty 

with Webster, 140. 
Atlanta, operations around, 1864, 

235- 
Atlantic fleet, the, m West Indian 

waters, 333. 
Audubon, no. 
Australian system of voting, features 

and adoption of, 320. 

DAHIA HONDAr333. 

*-' Ballot, reform of the, by the 

States, 320. 

Baltimore, attack upon Massachu- 
setts regiment in, 1861, 218. 

Bancroft, George, no. 

Bank of the United States, first 
hint against, by Jackson, 34 ; re- 
charter of, chief issue, 1832, 64, 
79, 80 ; charter of the first, 179 1, 
and of the second, 1816, 70 ; ques- 
tion of constitutionality of, 70—72; 
attacked by Jackson's message of 
1S29, 72—74 ; branch of, at Ports- 
mouth, N. H., 76, 77 ; constitu- 
tion of second, 78 ; early and later 
management of, and connection 
with "the government, 78 ; figlit 
for recharter of, 79; removal of 
deposits from, 80, 82 ; effects of 
the struggle upon, 82 ; expiration 
of charter" of, 84; dangers from, 
86; danger from destroying, 87; 
efforts of Whigs to re-establish, 

137,138. „ „ . 

Banking reform, 1837-1841, 95, 90. 
Banks, General N. P., at Cedar 

Mountain, 225. 
Banks, State, power of, to issue 

paper, 69, 70 ; political grounds 



Index. 



861 



BAP 

upon which chartered, 75 ; chosen 
as depositories of the national 
revenue, 88 ; multiplication of, 
89 ; suspension of specie payments 
by, 1837, 93 ; safety fund system 
of New York, 96 ; New York free 
banking system, 96; issues of, 
taxed by Congress, 233. 

Baptist Church, split in, on slavery 
question, 209. 

Barnburners, The, a Democratic fac- 
tion, 1848, nominate Van Buren, 
158. 

Barry, William T., in Jackson's 
cabinet, 55. 

Beaumont visits United States with 
de Tocqueville, 109. 

Beaureeard, General, commands 
confederate forces at first battle 
of Manassas, 221 ; succeeds A. S. 
Johnston at Corinth, 224. 

Belgium recognizes independence of 
Texas, 143. 

Belknap, W. W., impeached for 
malfeasance in office while Secre- 
tary of War, 278. 

Bell, John, nominated for presidency 
by Constitutional Union party, 
206 ; popular vote for, 207. 

Benjamin, Judah P., senator from 
Louisiana, on purposes of Repub- 
licans concerning slavery, 20S. 

Benton, Thomas H., as a repre- 
sentative of the West, 27; feeling 
of, about Foot's Resolution, 42 ; 
feeling of, concerning the cur- 
rency, 1837, 95 » sympathy of, with 
" Loco-foco " principles, 96 ; 
Democratic leader, 112. 

Bering Sea Arbitration, 325. 

Bibliography, i, 22, ii6,_ 194, 253. 
See also Suggestions, ix. 

Biddle, Nicholas, president of the 
Bank of the United States, cor- 
respondence of, with Secretary 
Ingham concerning management 
of the Bank, 77. 

" Big Stick " policy, the, origin of, 

SSI- 
Bills of credit. States forbidden, 
Congress not permitted, to issue, 
69; forbidden by confederate 
constitution, 243. 
Blaine, James G., aggressive secre- 
taryship of, 325 ; American policy 
of, 325. 
Blanco, General, 331, 334- 



BUE 

Bland- Allison Act, the, 315. 

Blockade of southern ports ordered 
by Congress, 220 ; proclaimed by 
Lincoln, 229 ; effect of the procla- 
mation abroad, 223 ; necessity of, 
229 ; made eSectual, 230 ; effect 
of, upon economic resources of 
the South, 245. 

Boone, Daniel, 24. 

Booth, John Wilkes, assassinates 
Lincoln, 238. 

Boston, rescue of negro, Shadrach, 
in, 177. 

Boundaries, dispute with England 
concerning northeastern, 140 ; 
dispute with England touching 
Oregon, 148; dispute with Mex- 
ico concerning Texan, 149 ; settle- 
ment of southwestern, by Gad.s- 
den purchase, 189; further defini- 
tion of northeastern, by treaty of 
Washington, 278. 

Boxer revolt, the, Secretary Hay 
and, 346. 

" Boxers," the, 345- 

Bragg, General Braxton, commands 
confederate forces in Tennessee, 
231 ; at Murfreesboro, 231 ; at 
Chickamauga, 232 ; at Missionary 
Ridge and Lookout Mountain, 
232. 

Brass, scarcity of, in South, for ord- 
nance, 246, 

Breckinridge, John C, nominated 
for vice-presidency by Democrats, 
191 ; nominated for presidency by 
Southern Democrats, 206; vote 
received by, 207. 

Brook Farm, 109. 

Brown, B. Gratz, Liberal Republi- 
can leader, 282. 

Brown, John, character and raid of, 
202, 203 ; feeling in the South 
with regard to raid of, 203, 204. 

Bryan, William J., 319 ; attitude on 
Philippine question of, 338 ; de- 
feated for presidency, 354. 

Buchanan, James, takes part in 
framing " Ostend Manifesto," 
189 ; nominated by Democrats, 
191 ; elected, 192 ; policy of, as 
between the sections, 199 ; favors 
territorial aggrandizement, 202 ; 
' administration of, charged with 
corrupt practices, 204 ; course of, 
in crisis of 1860-1861, 214. 
Buell, General, brings Grant rein- 



362 



Index, 



BUE 

forcements at Pittsburg Landing, 
224 ; meets Bragg at Perryville, 
231 ; succeeded by Rosecrans, 
231. 

Buena Vista, battle of, 151. 

Buffalo, formation of Free Soil party 
at, 1848, 158. 

Bulwer. See Treaty, Clayton-Bul- 
wer. 

Burke, Edmund, observation of, on 
effects of slavery upon society, 
105. 

Burnside, General, at Fredericks- 
burg Heights, 226 ; superseded by 
Hooker, 230. 

Business man, the, general demand 
in politics for, 292. 



pABINET, of Jackson, 28; 

^-^ reconstructed, 54, 55 ; Jack- 
son's and Mrs. Eaton, 55 ; Lin- 
coln's, retained by Johnson, 270. 

Cabinet, confederate, relations of, 
to Congress, 244, 249; personnel 
of, 249. 

Calhoun, John C, vice-president 
and leader of southern wing of 
Jackson party, 28 ; relations of, 
with Jackson, 1818-1831, 53,54; 
read out of the Jackson party, 54; 
motives of, 1824— 1832, 55, 56; 
writes the " South Carolina Ex- 
position," 56, 57; "Address" 
upon nullification, 58; practical 
pohcy of, in regard to nullification, 
59, 60 ; resigns vice-presidency 
and enters Senate, 62 ; on state of 
currency in 1837, 94, 95; favors 
annexation of Texas, 144, 145 ; 
resolutions of, 1847, with regard 
to slavery in the Territories, 165, 
166 ; utterances of, in debate of 
1850, 170, 171; death of, 174; 
utterance of, with regard to the 
separation of the sections, 209, 
2ro. 

California, taken by United States 
and ceded by Mexico, 152; ques- 
tion of erection of, into a Terri- 
tory, 156; bill for organization of, 
defeated in Senate, 160 ; gold 
discovered in, 162; rapid settle- 
ment of, 167; frames a constitu- 
tion, 168 ; made a State under 
compromise of 1850, 169, 173. 

Cambon, M-, 336. 



CHA 

Campaign. See Election, Presiden- 
tial. 

Campbell, Justice, attempts to in- 
tervene in interest of peace, 1861, 
182. 

Canada, msurrection in, temp. Van 
Buren, 100; attempts to assist 
rebellion in, from United States, 

140, 353- 

Canal, Panama, treaty with Eng- 
land concerning, 174. 

Cape Verde Islands, the, 333. 

Capital develops the lobby, 291. 

Capitalistic concentration, cause and 
methods of, 305. 

Cardenas, 333. 

Carlyle, Thomas, to Emerson, in. 

(Carolina, North . See North Caro- 
lina. 

Carolina, South. See South Caro- 
lina. 

" Carpet-bag " governments in the 
South, 268, 269 ; end of, 273. 

Carey, Henry C, begins to publish, 
no. 

Catholic emancipation in England, 
108. 

Caucus, Congressional nominating, 
discredited, 17. 

Caucus system, original use of, in 
New York and Pennsylvania, 20. 

Cass, Lewis, in Jackson's cabinet, 
55 ; Democratic leader, 112 ; nomi- 
nated for presidency, 157 ; de- 
feated, 159 ; Secretary of State 
under Buchanan, 199. 

Cedar Mountain, battle of, 225. 

Censure of Jackson by Senate for 
removal of deposits, 83 ; expunged, 
84. 

Census of 1890, the, 290, 308. 

Centennial year, character of, 273 ; 
celebration of, 286, 287. 

Centralization of the confederate gov- 
ernment, 249, 250 

Central America, expeditions organ- 
ized against, 190 ; extension of in- 
fluence of United States over, 325, 
353- 

Cerro Gordo, battle of, 151. 

Cervera, Admiral, his fleet destroyed 
at Santiago, 332, 334 ; blockade of, 
334. 

Chancellorsville, battle of, 230. 

Charleston, S. C., split in Demo- 
cratic nominating convention in, 
i860, 205 ; secession convention 



hidex. 



363 



CHA 

in, 2IO ; evacuation of, forced by 
Sherman's movements, 236. 

Chapultepec, Mexican fortress of, 
taken, 152. 

Chase, Salmon P., speech of, on 
compromise of 1850, 171 ; candi- 
date for presidential nomination, 
i860, 206 ; in Lincoln's cabinet, 
217 ; proposes national bank sys- 
tem, 232. 

Chattanooga, operations of the ar- 
mies round about, 1863, 231, 232. 

Cherokee Indians, treatment of, in 
Georgia and Alabama, 36-38. 

Chicago, great strikes in, 302-303. 

Chicago stock yards, the, investi- 
gated, 355. 

Chickamauga, battle of, 232. 

Chiie, dispute between the United 
States and, 325. 

China, American championship of 
the integrity of, 345 ; recent rela- 
tions of the United States with, 
348-349. 

Chinese immigration, begms, 18 r, 
182 ; legislation restricting, 1888, 
299. 

Churches split by slavery question, 
209. 

Cienfuegos, 334. 

Circular, The specie. See Specie 
Circular. 

Cities, absence of, in 1829, 5 ; jeal- 
ousy of, on part of early democ- 
racy, 15 ; effects of immigration 
tipon the government of eastern, 
180 ; expenditures of, for civil 
war, 252. 

Citizenship, provisions of Civil 
Rights Bill concerning, 264 ; pro- 
visions of Fourteenth Amendment 
concerning, 265. 

Civil Rights Bill, passed by Con- 
gress over Johnson's veto, 264 ; 
embodied in Fourteenth Amend- 
ment, 265, 293. 

Civil service, state of the federal, 
at opening of civil war, 220 ; first 
act for reform of, 1871, 277-280; 
reform of, becomes a leading ques- 
tion, 320 ; legislation concerning 
reform of, 321; reform of, carried 
forward by Cleveland, 322 ; 
by President Hayes, 320; by 
Theodore Roosevelt, 321-322. 

Civil Service Act. See Pendleton 
Act. 



COE 

Civil Service Commission, the, 320. 

Civil War, the, commercial isolation 
of the United States during, 290. 

Clay, Henry, nominated for presi- 
dency, 1824, 17; assists J. Q. 
Adams to election by the House, 
18 ; as a representative of the 
West, 26, 27 ; nominated for presi- 
dency, 1832, 63 ; defeated, 64 ; in- 
troduces compromise tariff bill of 
1833, 65; forces the fight for re- 
charter of Bank of the United 
States, 79, 82 ; introduces resolu- 
tions censuring Jackson, 83 ; for- 
mulates Whig programme of 1841, 
134 ; efforts of, to re-establish 
national bank, i37,_ 138; nomi- 
nated for presidency in 1844, i4S I 
defeated, 147 ; position of, with 
regard to annexation of Texas, 
145, 146 ; introduces compromise 
measures of 1850, 169, 170; urges 
acquiescence in Fugitive Slave 
Law, 175, 177 ; death of, 179. 

Clayton- Bulwer treaty, conclusion 
of, with regard to ship canal 
across Isthmus of Panama, 174, 
327 ; abrogated, 349. _ 

Cleveland, Grover, presidential plat- 
form of, 291 ; enforces forfeiture 
of government lands by Pacific 
railway companies, 297 ; his mes- 
sage to Congressonsubjectof labor, 
302 ; orders Federal troops to 
Illinois, 304 ; makes an issue of 
tariff question, 311; his project 
for free trade, 312; outspoken 
against free silver, 317; demands 
repeal of Sherman Act, 318 ; calls 
extra session of Congress, 318; 
promotes civil service reform, 320 ; 
secures repeal of tenure of office 
Act, 323 ; his action toward Ha- 
waii, 326 ; his action regarding 
Venezuela, 326 ; defines attitude 
of the United States toward Spain, 

329- 

Coahuila, State of, 142 ; portion of, 
claimed by Texas, 149. 

Coal, use of anthracite, in produc- 
tion of steam and manufacture of 
iron, 102. 

Cobb, Howell, in Buchanan's cabi- 
net, 199. 

Coercion, feeling with regard tp, 
i86r, in North, 214, 215, 219 ; in 
South, 215, 219. 



364 



Index, 



coi 

Coinage, of gold, 1833-1834, 90; of 
silver becomes a leading question, 
290 ; legislation concerning silver, 
291, 319. 

Cold Harbor, battle of, 234. 

Colfax, Schuyler, name of, con- 
nected with Credit Mobilier trans- 
actions, 279. 

Colleges, agricultural, grant of pub- 
lic land to, by Congress, 221. 

Colon, 350. 

Colonies, revolt of Spanish Mexican, 
142. 

Colonization Society, African, or- 
ganization and purpose of, 120. 

Colorado organized as a Territory, 
214. 

Columbia, S. C, nullification con- 
vention in, 60. 

Columbia, District of. See District 
of Columbia. 

Columbia River claimed as boun- 
dary line by England, 148. 

Commerce, state of foreign, in 1S29, 
6 ; interests of South in regard to, 
1830, 40 ; with the West Indies, 
85; increase in foreign, after 1S32, 
93 ; stimulated by gold discoveries, 
181 ; unhealthy stimulation of, 
1857, 196 ; of the southern Con- 
federacy, 245, 249 ; Act to control 
interstate, 1887, 307. 

Commission, Electoral, of 1877, 285, 
286; tariff, of 1882, 291 ; Interstate 
Comrrierce, 307. 

Committees, use of, in local party 
management, 20. 

" Compact " theory of the Consti- 
tution urged by HajTie, 1830, 43 ; 
validity of, 45, 46 ; relation of, to 
nullification, 47 ; basis of legal 
theory of secession, 211; un- 
doubted in South, 241 ; not wholly 
rejected in North, 242. 

Compromise of 1850, debated, 169- 
171 ; effected, 172, 173 ; effect of, 
upon subsequent policy, 183 ; in- 
dorsed by Democrats, 1856, igi. 

Compromise, Missouri. See Mis- 
souri Compromise. 

Confederate States of America, pro- 
visional organization of, 211 ; 
capital of, established in Rich- 
mond, Va., 219 ; prospects of for- 
eign recognition of, 222 ; given 
international standing as a bellig- 
erent, 223 ; cut in twain by fed- 



CON 

eral successes along the Missis- 
sippi, 231; method of formation 
of, 240 ; character of constitution 
of, 242, 243 ; resources of, 244, 
245 ; military conscription by, 246 ; 
financial measures of, 247, 248 ; 
foreign trade of, 249 ; character of 
government of, 249, 250 ; suspen- 
sion of habeas corpus in, 250; 
passport system adopted by, 250 ; 
minority opposition in, to war, 
250, 251 ; fails of foreign recogni- 
tion, 251 ; devastation and ex- 
haustion of, 251, 252 ; property of, 
devoted to education of the ne- 
groes, 265. 

Confiscation legislation of 1861, 220. 

Congress, the "billion dollar," 313. 

Congress, confederate, powers 
granted to, 243 ; relations of, with 
cabinet, 244, 249 ; character and 
composition of, 249 ; secret ses- 
sions of, 250. 

Congress of the United States, fi- 
nancial powers of, 69 ; power of, 
to charter a national bank, 70-72 ; 
power to govern slavery in Terri- 
tories, 131 ; last-named power de- 
nied by Dred Scott decision, 198 ; 
hesitation of, upon first crisis of 
secession, 214; war policy of, 
1 861-1862, 219-221 ; radical meas- 
ures taken by, 1862-1863 , 227, 228 ; 
establishment of national bank 
system by, 1863-1864, 232, 233 ; 
creates West Virginia, and passes 
Draft Act, 228 ; views of, regarding 
treatment of seceded States, 255, 
256, 262 ; proposal of Thirteenth 
Amendment by, 259 ; temper of, 
with regard to reconstruction, 
262 ; contest of, with President 
Johnson, 264 ; proposal of Four- 
teenth Amendment by, 265 ; 
method of reconstruction adopted 
by, 267 ; proposes Fifteenth 
Amendment, 269 ; impeaches 
Johnson, 270 ; Credit Mobilier 
scandals in, 279; " Salary Grab " 
by, 280 ; power of, to issue legal 
tender paper sustained by Su- 
preme Court, 281 ; and polygamy, 
29s ; attempted legislation against 
Chinese, 300 ; President Cleve- 
land's message on subject of labor, 
to, 302 ; its efforts to reduce the 
surplus, 30S-3 14; President 



Index. 



365 



CON 

Cleveland calls extra session of, 
31S; repeals Tenure of Office Act, 
323 ; votes emergency fund for 
Spanish War, 331; and the new 
dependencies, 338. 

Congressional elections, fluctuations 
in, 291. 

Conkling, Roscoe, 321. 

Connecticut, restriction of suffrage 
in, [ 1 2 

Conscription, military, in the South, 
1861-1865, 246, 247. 

Conspiracy, legislation of 1861 
against, 220. 

Constitution, confederate : framed 
and adopted, 211 ; character and 
provisions of, 242, 243. 

Constitution, federal: purposes of 
the framers of, 12 ; and the 
powers of federal government 
in dealing with the Indians, 38 ; 
nullification vs. secession under, 
47> S7> 58) 60 ; politics brought 
under theory by fine-spun inter- 
pretations of, 67, 68; financial 
powers granted by, 69; power to 
charter a national bank under, 70- 
72 ; power conferred by, over 
slavery in the Territories, 131, 198 
(Dred Scott decision); right of 
secession under, 46, 165, 167, 168, 
211; character of, not a mere 
document, 211, 212; straining of, 
during civil war, 254 ; relations 
of, to questions of reconstruction, 
1864-1870, 255, 256, 261, 262; end 
of first century of, 289 ; does not 
follow the flag, 338. 

" Constitutional Union " party, for- 
mation and principles of, i860, 
206. 

Contested election of 1876-1877, 
283-286 

Convention, the Nashville, 172; 
theory of South with regard to 
sovereignty of popular, 240. 

Conventions, nominating, first na- 
tional, 62; of 1844, 145, 146; of 
1848, 157-159; of 1852, 178, 179; 
of 1856, 190-192 ; of i860, 205- 
207; of 1864, 236, 237; of 1868, 
271 ; of 1872, 282. 

Conventions, reconstruction, in the 
South, 26S. 

Corea, relative position to Japan of, 
328. 

Corinth, Mississippi, battle of, 224 ; 



CUB 

almost taken by Van Dorn, 
231. 

Corn, Indian, production of, in 
South, 1861, 245. 

Corporation, the, occupies forefront 
of American industrial stage, 
290. 

Corporation and Test Acts, in Eng- 
land, 108. 

Corporations, municipal, reform of, 
in England, 108. 

Cotton, exports of, in 1829, 50; in- 
crease in exportation of, 124, 125 ; 
effect of culture of, upon slave 
system, 124, 125 ; necessity of, to 
foreign countries, expected to se- 
cure recognition of Confederacy, 
222 ; necessity of shutting in, by 
blockade, 229; production of, in 
South, 1861, and effect of block- 
ade thereupon, 245 ; loans of, to 
confederate government, 247 ; ex- 
ports of, 1862, 251. 

Cotton gin, effects of invention of, 
in South, 124, 125. 

Coxey's army, 302-303. 

Crawford, William H., nominated 
by congressional caucus, 17. 

Credit Mobilier scandals, 279. 

Creek Indians, Jackson engaged in 
war against, 24 ; removal of, from 
Georgia, 36. 

Crisis, commercial, of 1819, 49 ; 
financial, of 1837, 93 i of 1857, 
196. 

Crook, General, against Early, in 
valley of Virginia, 235. 

Crops, southern, 1861-1865, 248. 

Cuba, " Ostend Manifesto" con- 
cerning, 189 ; Buchanan urges ac- 
?[uisition of, 202 ; acquisition of, 
avored by Democratic party, i860, 
205 ; intervention of the United 
States in, 328 ; steps leading to 
this, 328; its relative position to 
the United States, 328 ; interest 
of the South in, 329 ; past attitude 
of the United States toward, 329 ; 
the Ten Years War, 329 ; Weyler's 
famous reconcentration order, 329 ; 
autonomy offered to, 330 ; declared 
free and independent by the United 
States, 332 ; establishment of gov- 
ernment in, 342-344 ; treaty with 
the United States, 343 ; economi- 
cal and political instability in, 
343. 



366 



Index. 



CUB 

Cuban insurrection, the, early stages 
of, 329. ... 

Culture, limitations upon, in 1829, 
7; stage of, 1830-T840, iTo, III. 

Cumberland River, optrations of 
Grant upon, 1862, 223. 

Currency, connection of question of, 
with formation of federal govern- 
ment, 69 ; powers of Congress 
over the, 69, 70 ; inflation of, 
1833-1836, 89-go; effort of Jack- 
son to add gold to, 90 ; effects of 
Jackson's specie circular upon, 91, 
93 ; the litird money party of 
^837, 94 ; national bank, 1864, 
233. 

Currency question, the, 3 14-320 ; 
rise of, 315. 

Custom-houses, federal, taken pos- 
session of, in South, 213. 

rvAIQUIRI, 335-. ^ . 

*-^ Dakota, organized as a Terri- 
tory, 214. See also North Dakota 
and South Dakota. 

Davis, Jefferson, chosen President 
of the Confederacy, 211 ; calls for 
volunteers, 219 ; issues letters of 
marque and reprisal, 223 ; removes 
J. E. Johnston from his com- 
mand, 235. 

Dawes Bill, the, 297. 

Dav, Secretary, 331, 337. 

Debs, Eugene V., 303. 

Debt, disappearance of national, 
183s, 87 ; utterance of Republican 
convention concerning national 
war, 237 ; size of war, 252 ; piled 
up in South by "carpet-bag" 
governments, 269. 

Declaration of Independence, influ- 
ence of, upon extension of suffrage, 
hi; original draft of, and slave 
trade, 124. 

Delaware, legislature of, favors Wil- 
mot Proviso, 165 ; rejects Thir- 
teenth Amendment, 259. 

Democracy, Jeflfersonian, 13 ; tri- 
umph of, delayed by influences of 
French Revolution, 13, 14; de- 
cisive success of, 14, 15 ; contrasted 
with Jacksonian, 20, 21 ; effect of 
growth of, upon slavery question, 
119. 

*' Democracy in America," occasion 
of composition of, 109. 

Democratic Convention of 1896, the. 



DET 

declares in favor of ix&& silver, 

319- 

Democratic party, the, programme of, 
under Jackson in 1829, 34 ; nomi- 
nates Jackson in national con- 
vention, 63 ; accepts " Loco-foco" 
principles, 96 ; discredited under 
Van Buren, 99-101 ; dominated by 
Jackson's personality, 112 ; its 
leaders and principles after Jack- 
son, 112, 113; effect of anti- 
slavery movement upon, 1830- 
1840, 114; successful in the 
elections of 1841 and 1842, 141; 
nominates Polk for the presidency, 
146 ; platform of, in 1844, 146 ; 
revenue policy of, after 1846, 155; 
loses congressional elections, 1846, 
155 ; doctrine of " squatter sov- 
ereignty" adopted by, 156 ; nomi- 
nates Lewis Cass for presidency, 
1848, 157 ; split into factions, 
1848, 158; defeated, 1848, 159; re- 
fuses to commit itself in favor of 
slavery in Territories, 1848, 157 ; 
nominates Franklin Pierce for 
President, 178 ; formally adopts 
Virginia and Kentucky Resolu- 
tions, 178, 179 ; divided upon re- 
peal of Missouri Compromise, 185 ; 
nominates Buchanan for presi- 
dency, 1856, 191 ; becomes a south- 
ern party in 1856, 199; split in, 
upon Kansas question, 200, 201 ; 
disintegration of, i860, 205 ; nom- 
inations of the several sections of, 
205, 206 ; defeat of, i860, 207, 208.; 
action of, in 1864, 236, 237 ; nomi- 
nates Seymour, 1868, 271; nomi- 
nates Greeley, 282 ; successes of, 
in elections of 1874 and 1S75, 283 ; 
nominates Tilden for presidency, 
283 ; given over to financial here- 
sies and schism, 292 ; endeavors 
to frame a tariff, 313. 

Democratic-Republican party, the, 
under Jefferson, 20. 

Dependent Pension Act, the, 313. 

Deposits, removal of, by Jackson 
from Bank of United States, 80- 
82 ; Senate's censure of Jackson 
because of, 83. 

" Deseret," attempt of Mormons to 
form State of, 168. 

De Lome. See Lome, Dupuy de 

De Tocqueville. See Tocquevilie, 
Marquis de. 



Index. 



367 



DEW 

Dewey, Commodore George, de- 
stroj's Spanish fleet at Manila, 332, 
333 ; his attitude toward Aguiualdo, 

339- 

Diedrichs, Admiral, 344. 

Dingley Tariff, the, 319. 

Diplomatic transactions, under Jack- 
son, 84-86; under Tyler, 140; 
under Polk, 148, 152 ; under Tay- 
lor, 174 ; under Grant, 278. 

District of Columbia, agitation 
against slave trade in, 100, 114; 
slave mart in, 125; slave trade in, 
abolished, 1850, i6g, 173 ; univer- 
sal suffrage established in, by Con- 
gress, 267. 

Donelson, Fort, taken by Grant, 
223. 

Dorr Rebellion in Rhode Island, 
161. 

Douglas, Stephen A., introduces 
Kansas-Nebraska legislation, 182, 
183; purposes in introducing sam.e, 
183, 184 ; candidate for Demo- 
cratic presidential nomination, 
1856, 191 ; position of, with regard 
to Dred Scott decision, 200, 201, 
202; joint debate with Lincoln, 
201, 202 ; nominated by section of 
Democrats for presidency, i860, 
205 ; defeated, 207. 

Dowries vs. Bidwell, case of, 338. 

Draft Act, the, 1863, 228. 

Drago, Sefior, 352. 

Dred Scott decision, facts of case, 
197; opinion of Supreme Court, 
igS ; position of Douglas concern- 
ing, 200, 201, 202 ; South demands 
practical application of, 204 ; dis- 
integration of Democratic party 
upon question of p implication of, 
205 ; denounced by Republicans, 
206, 338. 

Duane, William J., made Secretary 
of Treasury by Jackson, 80 ; re- 
fuses to remove deposits, and is 
dismissed, 81. 

CARLY, General Jubal A., 
*- against Wallace and Crook, 

234, 235- 

Eaton, General John H., in Jack- 
son's cabinet, 28 ; withdraws, 55. 

Eaton, Mrs., and the wives of Jack- 
son's cabinet officers, 54, 55. 

Economic changes, caused by rail- 
way construction and labor-saving 



ENG 

machinery, 102-104 ; share of 
South in, 1829-1841, 104, 105; 
new questions, 1 877-1909, 28S— 
357; changes after the civil war, 
^289. 

Editors, new type of newspaper, 
iix; arbitrary arrests of, during 
civil war, 254. 

Edmonds Act, the, 296. 

Edmunds, Senator George F., pro- 
poses legislation against polyg- 
amy, 297, 298. 

Education in United States before 
1829, 7. 

El Caney, 335 ; capture by Lawton 
of, 336. 

Election, presidential, of 1824-1825, 
17, 18 ; of 1828, 19— 21, 25, 26 ; of 
1832, in its bearings on Indian 
question, 37; of 1832, 62 — 64; 
of 1836, 92; of 1840, loi, 133, 134; 
campaign methods of, of 1S40, 
118 ; of 1844, 145, 146 ; of 1S48, 
157-160; of 1S52, 178-180; of 
1856, 190-192 ; of i860, 204—208 ; 
of 1S64, 236, 237 ; of 1868, 271 ; of 
1872, 282 ; of 1876—1877, 283-286; 
fluctuations in, 291. 

Electoral Commission of 1877, 285, 
286. 

Electoral Count Act, the, 322. 

Electors, presidential, method of 
choice of, in 1824, 18; in 1828, 20; 
in i860, 210. 

Elkins Act of 1905, the, 355. 

Emancipation, early plans of, in 
South, 120 ; Lincoln's preliminary 
proclamation concerning, 227 ; his 
final proclamation of, its purpose 
and effect, 227 

Emancipation, Catholic, in England, 
108. 

Embargo of 1807, feeling of New 
England about, 46. 

Emerson, R. W., begins to publish, 
no; Carlyle to, in. 

England, Jackson effects arrange- 
ments with, concerning West India 
trade, 85 ; reform movements in, 
1829-1840, 108, 109; treaty with, 
concerning northeastern bounda- 
ries, 140 ; recognizes independence 
of Texas, 143 ; claims of, upon 
Oregon, 148; treaty with, touching 
Oregon boundary, 14S; treaty 
with, touching Panama _ Canal, 
174 ; international industrial exlii- 



363 



Index. 



ERA 

bition in, i8i ; need of cotton in, 
expected to secure recognition of 
Confederacy, 222 ; makes procla- 
mation of neutrality in civil war, 
223 ; failure of, to recognize south- 
ern Confederacy, 251 ; treaty 
of Washington with, 278; repre- 
sented at Centennial Exhibition, 
286, 287 ; dispute with United 
States over Bering Sea, 325; 
Monroe Doctrine enforced against, 
326; relative position of Ireland 
to, 328; position on Spanish- 
American war of, 344; its attitude 
on the " open door" policy, 345 ; 
in China, 346. 

" Era of good feeling," character of, 
16. 

Ericsson, inventor of turreted 
" Monitor," 229. 

Executive, confederate, tenure of, 
243 ; representation of, in Con- 
gress, 244 ; centralization of au- 
thority in the hands of, 249 ; 
personnel of, 249 ; arbitrary pow- 
ers of, 250. 

Executive, federal, relation of, to 
Congress till 1825, 19, 20, 29; 
after 1828, 29, 30; demoralization 
of, under Grant, 277, 27S. 

Exliibition, the Centennial, 273, 2S6, 
287. 

Exports in 1829, 6; from the South 
as compared with other sections, 
1829, 50. 

" Exposition," the South Carolina, 
of nullification doctrine, 56, 57. 

Expunging resolution, the, concern- 
ing Senate's censure of Jackson, 
84. 

UAIR OAKS, battle of, 1862, 

*■ 225. 

Farmers' Alliance, the, 316. 

Farragut, Commodore David, takes 
New Orleans, 224 ; takes Mobile, 
236. 

Federalists, the, early characteris- 
tics of, 10-13 ) lose control of gov- 
ernment, 13,14; discredited, 16; 
principles of, inherited by Whigs, 

113- 
Federal Judiciary, the, and the 

States, 324. 
Fifteenth Amendment, the, 294. 
Fifth Army Corps, the, 335. 
" Fifty-four Forty or Fight," 148. 



FRA 

Fillmore, Millard, nominated for 
vice-presidency, 157 ; elected, 159; 
becomes President, 173 ; nomi- 
nated by "Know Nothing" party, 
190. 

Finances of southern Confederacy, 
247, 248. 

Fish, Hamilton, enters Senate from 
New York, 184. 

Fisher, Foit, N. C, taken by fed- 
eral forces, 236. 

Fisheries, Treaty of Washington re- 
garding Canadian, 278. 

Florida, Seminole wars in, 53, 54, 
100, 130; admitted to Union, 162 ; 
secedes, 210; fails to act on 
Thirteenth Amendment, 260 ; re- 
admitted to representation in Con- 
gress, 269 ; election troubles in, 
1876, 284; judicial decisions oust 
republican government in, 286 ; 
withdrawal of Federal troops from, 
292. 

Floyd, John, voted for for presidency 
by South Carolina, 1832, 64. 

Floyd, Jolm B., actinn of, as Secre- 
tary of War, i85o, 246. 

Foote, Commodore, co-operates with 
Grant upon the Tennessee, 223. 

Foote, Solomon, enters Senate from 
Vermont, 1S4. 

Foot's resolution concerning the pub- 
lic lands, 41. 

Foraker Act, the, 342. 

Force Bill, the Lodge, 294, 317. 

" Force Bill " of 1833, 65 ; declared 
null by South Carolina, 67; of 
1870 and of 1 87 1 in support of 
amendments, 274. 

Foreign Relations, 325. >S"£'^ Treaty, 
War; and foreig7t countries by 
name. 

Forts, Federal, seized by confederate 
author ties, 213. 

Foster, ? 326. 

Fourteenth Amendment, the, 294 ; 
labor and, 301, 324. 

Fowling-pieces used by confederate 
armies, 246. 

France, attitude towards United 
S.ates at beginning of century, 14 ; 
spoliation claims against, 86 ; rec- 
ognizes independence of Texas, 
143 ; makes proclamation of neu- 
trality in civil war, 223 ; inter- 
vention of, in Mexico, 272. 

Franchise. See SuflFrage. 



Index. 



369 



FRA 

Franklin, Tennessee, action at, 1864, 
235- 

Fredericksburg Heights, battle of, 
226. 

'♦Free Banking" system of New 
York, 96 ; furnishes model of na- 
tional bank system, 1863, 232. 

Freedman's Bureau, first Act estab- 
lishing, 263; second, 264; third, 
265. 

Free lands, end of, 296. 

Free Soil party, the, formation and 
principles of, 158, 159 ; absorbs 
Liberty party, 159; declarations 
of, in 1852, 179 ; absorbed into 
Republican party, 187, 188. 

Free Trade, President Cleveland's 
project for, 312. 

Fremont, John C, nominated by 
Republican party for presidency, 
1856, 191 ; nominated in 1864, 236; 
withdraws, 237. 

French Revolution, effect of, on 
American politics, 13, 14. 

Frontiersmen in politics, 11, 15, 23— 
26 ; attitude of, in matter of self- 
government, 35. 

Fugitive Slave Law, the, of 1850, 
169, 173, 176, 177 ; of 1793, 175, 
176; effect of, of 18505 175, 177; 
extended to Territories, 184; "per- 
sonal liberty laws" against, in 
northern States, 205, 208. 

Fugitive slaves, provision of the Con- 
stitution concerning, 175 ; les^isla- 
tion concerning, 175-177; feeling 
concerning, 176, 177. 

Fulton, Robert, applies steam to 
navigation, 1807, 5. 

GADSDEN purchase from Mex- 
ico, 189. 
Gallatin, Albert, out of public life 

in 1829, II ; fails to reopen West 

India trade, 85. 
Garfield, James A., assassinated, 

321 ; contest between, and senators 

from New York, 321. 
Garrison, William Lloyd, establishes 

"Liberator," 109; demands total 

abolition of slavery, 121 ; suggests 

withdrawal of Massachusetts from 

Union, 165. 
Geary Act, the, 300. 
Genet, impudence of, 14. 
Georgia, question of Indians in, 36— 

38 ; growth of population in, 1830- 



GRA 

1840, 108; secedes, 210; opposi- 
tion to secession in, 215, 241 ; 
becomes theatre of war, 231, 232, 
235; Sherman's march through, 
251 ; readmitted to representation 
in Congress, 269. 

Germany, controversy over Samoa, 
325; and Venezuela, 351. 

Gettysburg, battle of, 230. 

Giddings, Joshua R., reinforces J. 
Q. Adams as anti-slavery leader 
in House, 143, 144. 

Gila River, claimed as boundary by 
Mexico, 189. 

Gin, cotton, invention of, by Whit- 
ney, 124; effect of, on slavery, 
124, 125. 

Gold discovered in California, 162 ; 
discussion concerning exclusive 
coinage of, 319. 

Gold standard, the, 319. 

Government, original character of 
the federal, 12 ; character of, as 
affected by national sentiment, 
211, 212, 242 ; views of Supreme 
Court regarding after civil war, 
275. 

Granger laws, the, and the courts, 
306. 

Grangers, formation of party of, 282. 

Grant, General Ulysses S., opera- 
tions of, upon the Tennessee and 
Cumberland, 223, 224 ; at Vicks- 
burg, 230 ; at Missionary Ridge 
and Lookout Mountain, 232 ; be- 
comes comraander-in chief, 232 ; 
advance of, upon Richmond, 234 ; 
brings war to close at Appomattox, 
237; utterance of, regarding pris- 
oners in the South, 252 ; given 
independent military powers by 
Congress, 1867, 267 ; nominated 
by Republicans for presidency, 
271 ; elected and installed, 272 ; 
general character of term of, 273, 
274 ; orders and justifies interven- 
tion of federal troops in southern 
election troubles, 276, 277 ; sup- 
ports Republican government of 
South Carolina with troops, 284 ; 
desires purification of civil ser- 
vice, 277 ; official malfeasance 
under, 277, 278 ; favors annexation 
of San Domingo, 278; Republican 
reaction against administration of, 
281, 282 ; elected for a second 
term, 282. 



24 



370 



Index. 



GRA 

Gray, Asa, no. 

Great Britain. See England. 

Greeley, Horace, nominated by Lib- 
eral Republicans and Democrats 
for presidency, 282. 

Greenback party, 290, 315; disap' 
pearance of, 316. 

Growth, material, character and 
speed of early, 3-7 ; character of, 
in Jackson's time, 103—105. 

Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 252 ; 
indefinitencss of, as to boundaries, 
189. 

HABEAS CORPUS, suspension 
of, by President and Congress, 
228, 254 ; suspension of, in south- 
ern Confederacy, 250. 

Hale, John P., nominated by Lib- 
erty party, 1S4S, withdraws, 159. 

Hamiiton, Alexander, part of, in 
the formation of the government 
and its early policy, 13; suggests 
Bank of the United States, 70; 
and maintains its constitutionality, 

71- 

Hamilton, James, governor of South 

Carolina, 1832, 59. 
Hamlin, Hannibal, nominated for 

vice-presidency by Republicans, 

1S60, and elected, 207. 
Hampton Roads, naval engagements 

in, 1862, 229, 333. 
Hanna, Mark, 319. 
Harper's Ferry, John Brown at, 

203 ; taken by Lee, 226. 
Harrison, Benjamin, grants amnesty 

to adherents of mormonism, 296 ; 

evades free silver question, 317. 
Harrison, William H., elected presi- 
dent, loi ; character and death of, 

134- 

Hatteras, Fort, capture of, 1861,229. 

Havana, confederate commission- 
ers sail from, 222, 342. 

Hawaii (1893), 326; Congress pro- 
vides government for, 338. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, log. 

Hay, John, and the " open door " 
policy, 345 ; and the Boxer revolt, 

346- 
Hay Conference, the second, 252 ; 

importance of, 252. 
Hay-Pauncefote treaty, the second, 

349. * 

Hayes, Rutherford B., nominated by 

Republicans for presidency, 283 ; 



IDA 

declared elected by Electoral Com- 
mission, 285 ; withdraws troops 
from Louisiana and South Caro- 
lina, 286 ; contest with Democratic 
Congress, 292 ; vetoes legislation 
against Chinese, 300 ; advances 
Civil Service reiorm,32o; his atti- 
tude regarding the Isthmian Canal, 
327- 

Hayne, Robert Y., on Foot's reso- 
lution, 43 ; validity of arguments 
of, 45-47 ; represented Calhoun 
group, 52 ; becomes governor of 
South Carolina, 61, 62. 

Henry, Fort, taken by Grant, 223. 

Hepburn Act, the, 355. 

"hierald," the New York, estab- 
lished, III. 

Hierarchy, early federal, 13. 

" Higher law" doctrine of Seward, 
171. 

Hill, Isaac, enters "Kitchen Cab- 
inet " of Jackson, 76; hostility of, 
to branch of Bank of the United 
States at Portsmouth, N. H., 76. 

Hobson, Richmond P., heroism of, 

334- 

Holmes, Oliver W., no. 

Hoist, H. von, on the sectionaliza- 
tion of the Union, 212. 

Hong Kong, 332, 345. 

Homestead strike, the, 302. 

" Homestead Bill," passed by Con- 
gress, 221. 

Hood, General, against Sherman 
and Thomas, 235. 

Hooker, General, succeeds Burn- 
side in command of Army of 
Potomac, 230. 

House of Representatives, charac- 
ter it was meant to have, 12 ; 
elects J. Q. Adams, 18; constitu- 
tionality of its action at that tinie,2o. 

Houston, Sam, 24 ; defeats Santa 
Anna at San Jacinto, 142. 

Hughes, Governor, 355. 

Hunkers, Democratic faction, 184S, 
158. 

Hunter, General, driven from valley 
of Virginia, 234. 

Huskisson, William, liberal influ- 
ence of, upon English commercial 
policy, 85. 

IDAHO becomes a state, 295. 
Ideal, material, of early develop- 
ment, 3, 4. 



Index, 



371 



ILL 

Illinois, Republicans in, put Lincoln 
forward for Senate, 201 ; President 
Cleveland intervenes in labor 
troubles of, 304. 

Immigrants, new kind of, 299 ; 
capitation tax upon, 300. 

Immigration, prior to 1830, 3; in- 
crease, causes, and distribution of, 
1845-1850, 162, 163 ; increase of, 
causes formation of " American " 
party, 180; character of, 180; 
effect of, upon national character 
of the government, 211 ; dangers 
of, 299 ; Chinese, prohibited by 
Congress, 299. 

Immigration, Chinese, 299; agi- 
tation against, 299; legislation 
against, 299-300. 

Impeachment, provision of con- 
federate constitution regarding, 
242 ; of President Johnson by 
House of Representatives, 270. 

Imports, in 1829, 6 ; increase of 
after 1832, 93. 

Income tax, imposed by Congress, 
220. 

Independence, Declaration of. See 
Declaration of Independence. 

Independent Treasury, Van Buren's 
plan for an, 94, 95 ; adopted by 
Congress, 97 ; repeated by Whigs, 
137 ; result, 139, 140 ; re-estab- 
lished, 154. 

Indiana, growth of population in, 
1830— 1840, loS. 

Indian policy, enters upon its last 
phase, 297. 

Indians, Jackson's policy towards 
the, 36—38 ; the point of law with 
regard to, in Georgia, 38. 

Indian Territory, merged, 298. 

Indian wars, 297. 

Industrial revolution in United 
States, beginnings of, 102. 

Inflation of currency, 1833-1836, 89, 
90. 

Ingham, Samuel D., Secretary of 
Treasury, correspondence of, with 
Biddle concerning management 
of Bank of the United States, 76, 

77- 
Injunction, the, a grievance of 

organized labor, 304. 
Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, 

the, defined, 307 ; fatal weakness 

of, 307-308- 
Intarstate Comn^rce Commission, 



JAC 

the, created, 307 ; recalled from 

failure, 355. 

Insurrection, servile, in South, 
under Nat Turner, 130; effort of 
John Brown to excite, 203 ; fe.*rs 
of South regarding, 203, 204. 

Intellectual conditions of 1829, 8 ; 
awakening of 1829-1841, io8- 
III. 

Internal improvements, Jackson's 
attitude towards, 38, 39 ; appro- 
priations for, by "Riders," 39; 
attitude of Democratic party to- 
wards, 113 ; attitude of Whig 
party towards, 113; provision of 
Confederate constitution regard- 
ing, 242. 

Internal revenue, legislation of i86r, 
220. 

Interstate commerce legislation of 
Congress, 1887, 205, 307. 

Invention, of screw-propeller, steam 
hammer, reaping machine, and 
friction matclies, 102 ; of Morse's 
electric telegraph, 162 ; of power 
loom, sewing machine, and rotary 
printing press, 164. 

Iowa, admitted tn Union, 162 ; rural 
centres decline in, 298 

Ireland, immigrati<jn from, because 
of famine, 163 ; relative position to 
Great Britain of, 328. 

Iron, taxation of, 1861, 220 ; discov- 
ery of wealth of, in South, 298. 

Irrigation, 297. 

Island Number Ten, General Pope 
at, 1862, 223, 

Isthmian Canal, the, 326. 

JACKSON, Andrew, significance 
of his election, 2, 9-12, 17, 
20-21, 23-26; his training and 
character, 17, 23, 24, 25, 52-55 ; 
circumstances of his election, 17- 
21 ; his appointments to ofiSce, 
26, 27, 31-34; his advisers, 28, 
29) 32-34, 54, 55 ; his pur- 
poses, 34, 35 ; and the Georgia 
Indians, 35-3S; and internal im- 
provements, 38, 39 ; relations 
with Calhoun, 52— 54 ; attitude to- 
wards nullification, 52, 53 ; recon- 
structs his cabinet, «;4j 55 \ proc- 
lamation against nullification, 61 ; 
nominated /or presidency, 1832, 
63 •, elected, 64 ; effect of election 
of 1832 upon, 64 ", attacks Bank of 



372 



Index, 



JAC 

the United States in his message of 
1829, 72, 73 ; vetoes the Bank's 
charter, 79; effects removal of the 
deposits from Bank of the United 
States, 80, 81 ; reasons therefor, 
82 ; censured by Senate for re- 
moval of deposits, 83 ; his replj^, 
83 ; repeal of censure, 84 ; presses 
French spoliation claims, 86 ; on 
gold coinage and the currency, 
go; issues specie circular, gi ; in- 
fluence of, upon party formation, 
112; characterization of period of, 
215. 

Jackson, Thomas J. ( "Stonewall "), 
in the Shenandoah Valley and the 
Peninsula, 225 ; at Cedar Moun- 
tain, 225 ; with Lee at second bat- 
tle of Manassas, 336 ; killed at 
Chancellorsville, 230. 

Jackson, Miss., taken by Grant, 
1S63, 230. _ 

Japan, relative position of Corea 
to, 328, 346, relations of United 
States with, since igoo, 346-348 ; 
the Peace of Portsmouth, 347 ; 
the San Francisco school question 
347-348. 

Jay, John, early feeling about treaty 
concluded with England by, 14. 

Jefferson, Thomas, leader of first 
Democratic movement, 14, 15 ; 
opinion as to constitutionality of a 
national bank, 71 ; mention of 
slave trade in original draft of 
Declaration of Independence, 
124. 

Johnson, Andrew, nominated for 
vice-presidency, 236 ; character 
of, 257 ; continues to represent 
Tennessee in Senate after seces- 
sion, 257, 258; reconstruction pol- 
icy of, 2 58, 259 ; vetoes second 
Freedmen's Bureau Act and 
Civil Rights Bill, 264 ; breach of, 
with Congress, 264 ; violent course 
of, 266, 271 ; measures aimed at, 
by Congress, 266. 267 ; impeached, 
270; succeeded by Grant, 272. 

Johnston, Albert S., Confederate 
commander at Corinth and Pitts- 
burg Landing, 224. 

Johnston, Jo=eph E. , commands 
Confederate forces at first battle 
of Manassas, 221, 224; against 
McClellan on the peninsula, 225; 
against Sherman in Georgia, 235 ; 



LAB 

in North Carolina, 236 ; surren- 
ders, 238. 
Judiciary. See Supreme Court, 

KANSAS, organized as a Terri- 
tory, 183, 1S5 ; struggle for 
possession of, 1 82-1 86 ; refused 
admission as a free State, 187, 
200; struggle in, over Lscomp- 
ton constitution, igg, 200 ; Jolni 
Brown in, 202, 203; admitted to 
the Union, 1861,214. 

Kansas- Nebraska Bill, introduction 
and adoption of, 182-184; results 
of, 185-187; ambiguity of, with 
regard to exercise of " squatter 
sovereignty, " 185. 

Kearney, Dennis, 2gg. 

Kellogg, W. P., action of, as gov- 
ernor of Louisiana, 1876, 2S4. 

Kendall, Amos, in Jackson's 
- "Kitchen Cabinet," 29; charges 
Bank of the United States with 
corrupt practices, 76, 77. 

Kent, Joseph, publishes " Com- 
mentaries on American Law," no. 

Kentucky, feeling in, concerning 
Louisiana purchase, 35 ; con- 
trolled by federal power, 1861, 
222 ; represented m Confederate 
Congress, 249, 250 ; rejects 'i'hir- 
teenth Amendment, 259. 

Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-1799, 
14; basis of Hayne's arguments, 
1830, 43 ; not at first regarded as 
treasonable, 45 ; formally adopted 
by Democratic party, 17S, 179. 

Key West, 334, 

Kiao Chan, 345. 

" Kitchen Cabinet," the, 28, 29. 

Klondike, the, 353. 

Knights of Labor, the, 301 ; pro- 
gramme of, 30 '. 

" Know Nothing" party, formation 
of, iSo; strengtli of, in 1854, '^7; 
nominates M--. Fillmore in 1856, 
igo; disappears, 103; except in 
Congress, 201 ; partly represented 
by " Constitutional Union " party 
of i860, 206. 

Kossuth, Louis, welcomed in United 
States, 182. 

"Ku-Klux" movement, 274. 

LABOR, effects of railway con- 
struction and labor-saving ma- 
chinery upon conditions of, 103 ; 



Index. 



373 



LAB 

first significant organization of, in 
the United States, 104; immigra- 
tion causes organization on na- 
tional scale of, 301 ; and the P'our- 
teenth Amendment, 301 ; Presi- 
dent Cleveland's message on 
subject of, 302. 

Labor, organized, the strike the 
natural weapon of, 291 ; the injunc- 
tion a grievance of, 304 

Labor pariy of 1872, 282. 

Labor system adopted in South for 
control of negroes, 1S65-1S66, 
260. 

Labor Union, the, occupies forefront 
of American industrial stage, 290. 

Ladrones, the, 336. 

Lands, the public, economic, and 
political significance of federal 
l)olicy concerning, 1830, 41 ; atti- 
tude of the several sections to- 
wards, 41-43 ; effects of specula- 
tion upon sale of, 1834-1836, gi ; 
grant of, to Union Pacific Rail- 
way, 221 ; to agricultural colleges, 
221 ; offered for sale under Home- 
stead Bill, 221 ; sold upon easy 
terms to negroes, 265. 

Latin America, the United States 
and, 351-353. 

" Latter Day" exponents, the, de- 
prived of rights, 296. 

Lawton, General, capture of El 
Caney by, 336. 

Leaders, change of political, in 1829, 
II. 

Leather, taxation of, 1861, 220. 

Lecompton constitution (Kansas), 
struggle over the, igg, 200. 

Lee, Fitzhugh, Consul General, 329. 

Lee, Robert E., succeeds J. E. 
Johnston in command of Confed- 
erate forces on the Peninsula, 225 ; 
with Jackson, drives McClellan 
back, 225 ; wins second battle of 
Manassas, 226 ; at Antietar.i, 226 ; 
at Chancellorsville, 230 ; and Get- 
tysburg, 230 ; driven by G^ant to 
Richmond, 234, 235 ; surrenders, 

237- 
Legal-tender cases, decision of, by 

Sujireme Court, 280, 281. 
Leo XIII, Pope, uses influence to 

prevent Spanish-American War, 

331- 
Letters of marque granted by Presi- 
dent Davis, 223. 



LOM 

Lewis, Major William B.,in Jack- 
son's " Kitchen Cabinet," 29. 

Liberal Republican Party, formation 
and influence of, 282 ; action of, in 
campaign of 1872, 282. 

" Liberator," Garrison's, estab- 
lished, 109 ; demands total abo- 
lition of slavery, 121. 

Liberty party, formation of, 146, 
147; instrumental in defeating 
Clay, 147; absorbed by Erce 
Soldiers, 159. 

Liberty, Personal, Laws. See Per- 
sonal Liberty Laws. 

Lieber, Francis, begins to publish, 
no. 

Lincoln, Abraham, put forward for 
Senate by republicans of Illinois, 
201 ; joint debate with Douglas, 
201, 202 ; nominated for presi- 
dency by Republicans, and elected, 
207; character of, 216; purpose 
and spirit of, in i86r, 217, 218; 
mastery of, over men and policy, 
217, 218; constitution of cabinet 
by, 217; calls for volunteers, 218 ; 
course and purpose of, in regard 
to emancipation, 226, 227; eman- 
cipation proclamation of, 227 ; 
suspension of habeas corpus bv, 
228; proclaims blockade of south- - 
em ports, 229; re-nominated, 
1864, 236; re-elected, 237; criti- 
cisms upon administration of, 
1864,237; assassinated, 238 ; con- 
duct of, in regard to exercise of 
arbitrary powers, 255 ; views of, 
regarding reconstruction, 256 ; 
proclamation of amnesty by, 256; 
action of, regarding reconstruc- 
tion, 257; his idea of a spiritual 
as well as a physical restoration 
of the Union, 294. 
Literature of the United States be- 
fore 1829, 8; growth of (1829- 
1841), log, no. 
Livingston, Edward, in Jackson's 
cabinet, 55 ; made minister to 
France, 80. 
Loans from their crops by southern 

farmers to Confederacy, 247. 
Lobby, the, rise of, 2gi. 
" Loco-foco " party, formation and 

principles of, 95, 96. 
I^ome, Seiior niipuv de, his charac- 
tfnz;uion nf ^lcKinley, 330; re- 
called, 330. 



374 



Index, 



LON 

" Long and short haul " device, the, 

3«7- 

Longfellow, H. W., no. 

Longstreet, General, joins Lee with 
poriion of Tennessee army, 232. 

Lookout Mountain, battle of, 1863, 
232. 

Louisiana purchase, feeling in Ten- 
nessee and Kentucky concerning, 
35 ; feeling of Nev/ England 
about, 46. 

Louisiana secedes, 210 ; cut ofi from 
the rest of the Confederacy, 231 ; 
new government in, recognized by 
Lincoln, 1864, 257; election trou- 
bles in, in 1872, 276; election 
troubles in, in 1876, 284 ; federal 
support of Republican government 
in, withdrawn by Hayes, 286 ; 
withdrawal of Federal troops 
from, 292. 

Louis Philippe recognizes spoliation 
claims, 86. 

Lowell, James Russell, no. 

MACHINERY, labor-saving, 
effects of invention of, upon 
manners and industry, 103. 

"Machines," both parties directed 
by. 291. 

McClellan, General George B., gains 
control of upper courses of Ohio 
and Potomac rivers, 1861,221; takes 
command of Army of the Polo- 
mac, 224 ; Peninsula campaign, 
1862, 225; superseded by Pope, 
225 ; once more in command at 
Antietam, 226; nominated for 
presidency by Democrats, 237. 

McCormick, Cyrus H., invention of 
grain reaper by, 102. 

" McCulloch," the gunboat, 339 

McCulloch vs. Maryland^ case of, 
affecting constitutionality of Bank 
of the United States, 34, 71, 72. 

McDowell, General, commands 
Federal forces in first battle of 
Manassas, 221 ; superseded by 
McClellan, 224; kept in Wash- 
ington by Jackson, 225. 

McEnery claims to be governor of 
Louisiana, 284. 

McKinley Act, the, 312. 

McKinley, William, reports to Con- 
gress on Cuban situation, 330 ; De 
Lome's characterization of, 330; 
. his message preceding Spanish 



MAS 

War, 331-332; and the "open 
door" policy, 344-345; renomi- 
nated, 354; fatally shot, 354. 

McLane, Louis, in Jackson's cabi- 
net, 55 ; reports, as secretary of 
Treasury, in favor of Bank of 
United States, 79; transferred to 
State Department, 80; sent to 
England to open trade with West 
Indies, 85. 

Madison, James, character of the 
government under, lo : retires 
from active life, 11; attitude to- 
wards Alien and Sedition Laws, 
14; report of, to Virginia legisla- 
ture (1799), adopted by Democratic 
party, 178, 179. 

Maine sets the example of prohibi- 
tion laws, 182. 

" Maine,' the battleship, destroyed, 
330-331 '' investigation of, 331. 

Manassas, first battle of, 221 ; second 
battle of, 226. 

Manchuria, 346. 

Manila, Dewey at, 332, 333, 336; 
captured by General Merritt, 337. 

Manila Bay, 332. 

Manners of Americans, 1829, 7. 

Manufactures, in 1829, 6 ; stimula- 
tion of, after 1846, 196; in the 
South, 1861, 245 ; increased com- 
plexity of, causes economic 
changes, 294 ; growth of, in South, 
294. 

Manufacturing, rise of, 298 

Marcy, William L., justification of 
spoils system by, 33, 34. 

Marque and Reprisal, Letters of, 
granted by President Davis, 223. 

Marshall, John, still in authority in 
1829, II. 

Marshals, federal, at the polls in the 
South, 275. 

Maruneau, Harriet, no. 

Martinique, 333. 

Maryland, scene of military opera- 
tions, 1862, 223 ; arrest of members 
of legislature of, during Civil War, 
254; provisions for gradual eman- 
cipation in, 259. 

Mason, George, utterance against 
slavery, 120. 

Mason, Jeremiah, charges of Hill 
and Woodbury against, in connec- 
tion with administration of Branch 
Bank of the United States at 
Portsmouth, N. H., 76,77. ' 



Index, 



375 



MAS 

Mason, John Y., takes part in 
framing " Ostend Manifesto," 189. 

Mason, J. M., Confederate Commis- 
sioner to England, taken on the 
"Trent," 222. 

Massachusetts, election of Demo- 
cratic governor in, 283. 

Matamoras, Mexican city of, taken 
by Taylor, 150. 

Matches, friction, invention of, 102. 

Maximilian, placed by France upon 
the throne of Mexico, 272. 

Meade, General, defeats Lee at 
Gettysburg, 230; with Grant in 
the " Wilderness," 234. 

Memphis, Tenn., taken, 1862, 224. 

" Merrimac," the, 334. 

'' Merrimac," federal frigate, be- 
comes Confederate ram " Vir- 
ginia," 229. 

Merritt, General, captures Manila, 

337' 339- ., . , _ , , 
Messages, presidential : Jackson s, 
of 1829, 34; Jackson's, of 1829, 
upon Bank of the United States, 
73 ; Jackson's, of 1832, attacks the 
Bank, So; Polk's, ot Way, 1846, 
declares Mexico to have begun 
war against the United Stales, 
150; Buchanan's, of 1859, urges 
territorial aggrandizement, 202. 
Methodist Church, split in, on 

slavery question, 209. 
Mexico, becomes an independent 
government and loses Texas, 142 ; 
dispute with, touching Texan 
boundaries, 149; war with, 150- 
152 ; cedes New Mexico and Cali- 
fornia, 152 ; formal declaration of 
war against, 151 ; Gadsden pur- 
chase of territory from, i8g ; Bu- 
chanan proposes further seizures of 
territory from, 202 ; France places 
Maximilian upon the throne of, 

272, 353. 

Mexico, City of, taken by Scott, 152. 

Michigan admitted, 1836, loS. 

Miles, General Nelson A., overruns 
Porto Rico, 336. 

Military rule in South, 267, 276, 284. 

Mills Bill, the, 312. 

Minnesota admitted. '858, 200. 

Missionary Ridge, battle of, 232.^ 

Mississippi, growth of population, 
1830-1840, 108; state convention 
in, proposes Nashville convention, 
172 ; secedes, 210; fails to act on 



MOR 

Thirteenth Amendment, 260 ; 
adoption of Fifteenth Amend- 
ment made condition of re-ad- 
mission of, to Congress, 269 ; 
election troubles in, in 1875, 276, 
294- 

Mississippi River, movement of 
federal troops down the, 1862, 223 ; 
General Pope clears the, at New 
Madrid, _ 223, 224; opened on 
either side Vicksburg by federal 
forces, 1862, 224 ; commanded 
throughout its length by federal 
forces, 1863, 231. 

Missouri, extension of boundaries 
of, in contravention of compro- 
mise, 114; organized movement 
from, into Kansas, 186 ; controlled 
by federal power, 1861, 222, 223 ; 
represented in Confederate Con- 
gress, 249, 250 ; provisions in, for 
gradual emancipation, 259. 

Missouri Compromise, occurs in 
"era of good feeling," 16; sig- 
nificant of anti-slavery feeling, 
122; nature and stabihty of, 131, 
132 ; line of, extended through 
Texas, 147 ; later feeling of South 
about, 171 ; not affected by com- 
promise of 1850, 173 , repeal of, 
182-185 ■> invalidated by Dred 
Scott decision, 198 ; proposal to 
extend line of, to Pacific, 1861, 
214. 

Mobile, taken by Farragut, 236. 

Mobs, during financial distress of 
1837, 104. 

" Monitor," turreted vessel, in- 
vented by Ericsson, arrives in 
Hampton Roads, 229. 

Monroe, James, character of the 
government under, 10 ; retires 
from active hfe, 11 ; slate of par- 
ties during presidency of, 16 ; and 
Tenure of Office Act, 27. 

Monroe Doctrine enforced against 
France, in Mexico, 272, 326, 349, 
351. 

Montana created a State, 295. 

Monterey, Mexico, captured by 
General Taylor, 151. 

Montgomery, Ala., formation of 
confederate government at, 211 ; 
confederate capital moved from, 
to Richmond, Va., 219. 

Morgan, William, alleged murder of 
by Masons, 62. 



376 



Index, 



MOR 

Mormon Church, the, President 
seizes and administers property of, 
296 ; properties restored to, 296. 

Mormonism, adherents of, penahze 
polygamy, 296 ; amnestied by 
President Harrison, 296. 

Mormons, attempt to organize Ter- 
ritory of"Deseret," 168; legisla- 
tion against, 296. 

Morrison Tariff Bill, the, 311. 

Morse, Samuel F. B., perfects elec- 
tric telegraph, 162. 

Municipal corporations, reform of, 
in England, 108. 

Munn vs. Illinois, case of, 306, 324. 

Murfreesboro, battles of, 231. 

nvr ASHVILLE, Tenn., battle of, 

Nashville convention, 172. 

Nasmyth's steam hammer, inven- 
tion of, 102. 

National banks, establishment of 
the system of, 1863-1864, 232, 233. 

National debt. See Debt. 

National Federation of Labor, the, 
formation of, 302. 

National Republican party, origin 
of, 16 ; holds national nominating 
convention and nominates Clay, 
63; becomes Whig party, 113. 

Naturalization, Act of 1870, 280. 

Navigation, Steam. See Steam 
Navigation. 

Navy, creation of, by federal gov- 
ernment during Civil War, 229, 
230 ; efficiency of, 328, 335. 

Navy Department, the, 334; efiS- 
ciency of, 335. _ 

Nebraska, organization of, as Terri- 
tory, 182-184; made a State, 1867, 
267. 

Negroes, status of, under the Con- 
stitution (Dred Scott decision), 
19S ; under southern legislation 
after the war, 260 ; legislation of 
Congress regarding, 259, 263-265, 
269 ; intimidation of, as voters in 
the South, 274. 

Negro vote, the, substantial elimina- 
tion of, in South, 293. 

Neutrality, proclamations of, by 
France and England, 1861, 223. 

Nevada, organized as Territory, 214 ; 
made a State, J864, 267. 

NewT England, early ascendency of, 
propertied classes in, 13 ; attitude 



NUL 

of, towards public land question, 
41-43 ; secession movements in, 
46 ; rural centres, decline in, 298. 

New Jersey, restriction of suffrage 
in, 112. 

New Madrid, General Pope at, 
1862, 223. 

New Mexico, ceded to United 
States by Mexico, 152; question 
of erection of, into a Territory, 
156; frames a constitution at sug- 
gestion of Taylor, 168 ; organized 
as a Territory, 1850, 169, 173. 

New Orleans, Jackson's victory at, 
24; taken by Farragut, 1862, 
224. 

" New South," the, 292-295; the 
" Solid South " giving place to, 
294. 

Newspaper.'^, establishment of new 
kind of, III. 

New York, spoils system and " Al- 
bany Regency " in, 32-34 ; safety 
fund and free banking systems of, 
96; rent troubles in, 161. 

Nicaragua route, the, 349. 

Nominating conventions, use of, in 
New York and Pennsylvania, 20. 

Nominations, presidential, of 1824, 
17; of 1828, 19; of 1832, 63 ; of 
1836, 92 ; of 1840, loi ; of 1844, 
145, 146; of 1848, 157-159; of 
1852, 178, 179; of 1856, 190-192; 
of i860, 205-207; ot 1864, 236, 
237 ; of 1868, 271 ; of 1872, 282 ; 
of 1876, 283. 

Non-importation covenant of 1777 
includes slaves, 124. 

North Carolina, growth of popula- 
tion in, 1830-1840, io8; feeling in, 
with regard to coercion of se- 
ceded States, 215; secedes, 219; 
re-admitted to representation in 
Congress, 269. 

North 1,'akota, State of, created, 
295- 

Northern Securities case, success- 
fully prosecuted, 355. 

Northwest boundary, 148. 

Northwest, the Old, rural centres 
decline in, 298. 

Northwest Territory, Ordinance of 
1 7S7 respecting, 131. 

Nueces River, operations of Mexi- 
can and American troops near the, 
149. 

Nullification, logical difference be- 



Index. 



377 



OFF 

tween doctrine of, and doctrine of 
secession, 47; as expounded in 
" South Carolina Exposition," 57 ; 
and in Calhoun's " Address," 
58 ; not secession, 60 ; ordinance 
of, 60; Jackson's proclamation 
against, 61 ; compromise and rec- 
onciliation, 65-67 ; suspension of 
ordinance of, 66 ; repeal of ordi- 
nance of, 67 ; effects of struggle 
concerning, 67. 

OFFICE-SEEKING, under 
Jackson, in 1828, 26, 27. 

Office, Tenure of. See Tenure of 
office. 

Ohio, growth of population in, 1830- 
1840, 108 ; restriction of suffrage 
in, 112. 

Ohio River, upper courses of, con- 
trolled by McClellan, 1861, 221. 

Oklahoma, opening up of, 297 ; ad- 
mitted as a State, 298. 

" Open-door " policy, the, 345. 

"Omnibus Bill," of 1850, 169, 170; 
emptied, 170, 295. 

Oratory, character of American, 8. 

Ordinance of 1787, excludes slavery 
from Northwest Territory, 131; 
language of, followed in " Wilmot 
Proviso," 153 ; language of, copied 
in Thirteenth Amendment, 259. 

Ordinance of Secession. See Se- 
cession. Of Nullification. See 
Nullification. 

Oregon, "re-occupation" of, pro- 
posed by Democrats, 146; ques- 
tion of title to, 147, 148 ; and the 
"Wilmot Proviso," 156; organ- 
ized as a Territory, 157 ; doubt as 
to choice of presidential electors 
in, 1876, 285. 

Orient, the, United States in, 344- 

349- 

" Ostend Manifesto," concerning 
Cuba, 189; condemned by Repub- 
licans, 192. 

Owen, Robert, 109. 

PACIFIC Railway. See Rail- 
ways. 
Pacific railway companies, forfeit 
government lands, 297 ; extension 
of, 298. 
Palma, President, inauguration of, 

343- 
Palo Alto, battle of, 150. 



PEN 

Panama, Treaty with England con- 
cerning ship canal across Isthmus 
of, 174; railway across Isthmus 
of, 174; revolution at, 350; recog- 
nized as independent republic, 
350; makes treaty with United 
States, 350. 

Panama Canal, the, 349—350. 

Panama Company, the, 326. 

Panama route, the, selection of, 349. 

Pan-American Congress, the, 325. 

Panic, financial, of 1837, 93 5 of 
1857, 196; of 1873, 290; harsh 
lessons of, 290, 306; of 1893, 290; 
compelling lesson of, 290, 318. 

Paper, taxation of, i86r, 220. 

Paper money, issues of, by States 
and the Congress of the Confed- 
eration before 1789, 6g; issued 
afterwards through banks, 69, 70; 
popularity of bank issues, 74 ; is- 
sues of, authorized by Congress, 
1861, 220; issues of, in South, 
1861-1865, 247, 248; decisions of 
Supreme Court regarding power 
of Congress to give legal tender 
quality to, 280, 281. 

Paredes supplanted by Santa Anna 
in Mexico, 150. 

Paris, Peace Commission meets at, 

337- 

Parties, effect of westward move- 
ment upon, 3 ; development of, 
before 1824, 12-16; re-formation 
of, 1829— 1841, 112— 114, 118 ; dis- 
integration of, 1849, 165 ; effect of 
schemes of territorial aggrandize- 
ment upon, 190; state of, in 1856, 
igo-192 ; compacted and section- 
afized, 1856, 193 ; restoration of 
normal balance between, 273 ; for- 
mation of new, 1872— 1874, 282. 

Passport system adopted by South- 
ern Confederacy, 250. 

Patronage. See Spoils System. 

"Patrons of Husbandry." See 
Grangers. 

Pea Ridge, battle of, 1862, 223. 

Peace Congress of 1861, 214. 

Peace of Portsmouth, the, 347. 

Peking, 346. 

Pemberton. General, Confederate 
commander at Vicksburg, 231. 

" Pendleton Bill " for the reform of 
the Civil Service, 321. 

Peninsula campaign, 1863, 224, 
225. 



378 



Index, 



PEN 

Penitentiary system, reform of, in 
the United States, 109. 

Pennsylvania, spoils system in, 33; 
labor legislation in, 301. 

Pensions, proposed by convention 
which noniinated Lincoln, 1864, 
236, 237 ; lavish legislation con- 
cerning, 310. 

Perryville, battle of, 1863, 231. 

" Personal liberty " laws passed by 
northern States to defeat Fugitive 
Slave Law, 201;, 208, 

"Pet Banks," 1833-1836, 88. 

Petersburg, Va., invested by Grant, 

234> 235- 

Petitions, anti-slavery, rejected by 
Congress, 114, 122, 143. 

Philadelphia and Reading Railway, 
the, bankruptcy of, 313. 

Philanthropic movements of 1830— 
1840, log. 

Philippe, Louis, recognizes justice 
of spoliation claims, 86. 

Philippines, the, 336, the question 
of annexation of, 337; the United 
States agrees to purchase, 337 ; 
Congress provides government for, 
33S; civil government of, 340; 
William H. Taft first civil gover- 
nor of, 340 ; features of American 
rule in, 341. 

Philippine Commission, the first, 
340. 

Philippine Government Act, the, 
340. 

Philippine problem, the, difficulty 
of, 339-. 

" Philippine Republic," the, 339. 

Philippine revolt, the, 339. 

Pickens, Governor, of South Caro- 
lina, i86t, 218. 

Pierce, Franklin, nominated for 
presidency, 178; elected, 179; ap- 
proves Kansas-Nebraska legisla- 
tion, 184; directs consideration 
of occupation of Cuba by United 
States, 189. 

Pikes, southern regiments equipped 
with, 246. 

Pittsburg Landing, battle of, 224. 

Platforms, the first national, 63 ; of 
1844, 146; of 1848, 157; of 1852, 
178, 179; of 1856, 190-192; of 
i860, 205, 206; of 1S64, 236, 237; 
of 1868, 271. 

Piatt Amendment to Army Bill, 343. 

Piatt, Thomas P., 321. 



POT 

" Platte country," Territories organ« 
ized out of the, 182-184. 

Plebiscite, Jacksonian doctrine of, 
64. 

Poe, Edgar A., log. 

Political conditions, new, at Jack- 
son's accession, 2, 3, 9, n, 24—26. 

Politics, original spirit of, in the 
United States, 9—13. 

Polk, James K., nominated for the 
presidency, 146; character of, 146; 
elected, 147 ; orders General Tay- 
lor to make aggressive movements 
into Mexico, 149, 150; declares 
Mexico to have begun the war, 
150. 

Polgygamy, solution of problem of, 
295; penaHzed by adherents of 
Mormonism, 296. 

"Pool," the, 307. 

Poor-relief, reform of the system of, 
in England, 108, 130. 

" Poor whites " of the South, 12S. 

Pope, General, at New Madiid and 
Island Number Ten, 223. 224; in 
command of Army of Potomac, 
225, 226. 

Population, early growth and move- 
ment of, 2-5 ; rural character of, in 
1829, 5, 6 ; distribution of, after 
1821, 5 ; relative increase of, in the 
several sections, 1830-1840, 107, 
108; growth of, 1840—1850, 162; 
movement of, 163 ; becomes more 
heterogeneous, 181 ; of the South 
in 1861, 244. 

Populist party, the, 316. 

Port Hudson taken by Banks, 1863, 
231. 

Porto Rico, overrun by General 
Miles, 336; decreed not a part of 
United States, 338; Congress pro- 
vides government for, 338, 342 ; 
discontent in, 342. 

Port Royal, S. C, taken, i86r, 229. 

Portsmouth, N. H., Branch Bank 
of the United States at, 76, 77. 

Post Offices, federal, taken posses- 
sion of in South, 213. 

Potomac, Army of the, organized by 
McClellan, 224; defeated on the 
Peninsula, 221;; defeated under 
Pope, 225, 226 ; holds its ground 
at Antietam Creek, 226; defeated 
under Burnside at Fredericksburg 
Heights, 226; defeated under 
Hooker at Chancellorsville, 230; 



Index. 



379 



POT 

successful at Gettysburg under 

Meade, 230. 
Potomac River, upper courses of, 

controlled by McClellan, 1861, 

221. 
Power loom invented, 164. 
Prescott, William H., no. 
President. See Executive. 
Presidential succession, legislation 

concerning, 296, 297. 
Presidential Succession Act, the, 

322. 
Press, rotary printing, invented, 

164. 
Prices, efiEect of crisis of 1837 upon, 

93- 
P'l'igg vs. Pennsylvania, case of, 

176. 
Prison discipline, in the United 

States, 109; in South during civil 

war, 252. 
Privateers, confederate, 229, 230. 
Proctor, Senator, 331. 
Products of South and the tariff, 50 ; 

in 1861, 245. 
Prohibition of sale of intoxicating 

liquors originated in Maine, 182. 
Prohibition party, formation of, 1872, 

282. 
Property, enormous loss of, in civil 

war, 252. 
Protection, constitutionality of a sys- 
tem of, 51, 52; support of, by 

Whigs, 113. 
Protectionists, Democratic, 311. 
Protest, Jackson's, against Senate's 

censure, S3. 
Public land policy, 355. 
Public lands. See Lands. 
Public opinion, rise of new agency 

of, 291. 
Pullman Car Company, the, strike 

in, 303- 
Pure food law, the, 355. 

QUESTIONS, new, after Jack- 
son's accession, 9 ; new, after 
_ 1876, 288-357- 
Quincy, Josiah, utterance of, con- 
cerning action of New England in 
regard to purchase of Louisiana, 
46. 

RAILROAD concentration, 308. 
Railroading, evils of, 305, 307, 
308. 
Railways, first construction of, 1830- 



REP 

1840, 102 ; economic and social 
efifects of the rapid construction 
of, 103 ; extension of, 1840-1850, 
162 ; across the continent pro- 
posed, 181, 192, 237 ; condition of, 
in the South, 1861-1865, 248; 
Credit Mobilier scandals in con- 
nection with construction of Cen- 
tral and Union Pacific, 279. 

Reaper, invention of the McCor- 
iTiick, 102. 

Rebating, 307 ; rendered unprofit- 
able, 355. 

Reconcentration order, issued by 
Weyler, 329; mitigated, 330. 

Reconstruction, problem of, 1864, 
254-256; Lincoln's policy regard- 
ing, 256, 257; Johnson's cnurse 
regarding, 258, 259; theories in 
Congress regarding, 262 ; report 
of Congressional committee upon, 
265, 266 ; legislation of Congress 
regarding, 267 ; actual process of, 
267-269; legislation upheld by 
Supreme Court, 274, 275, 292. 

Reed, Thomas B., 323. 

Reform bill, first English parlia- 
mentary, 108. 

Removal of deposits. See Deposits, 
removal of. 

Removals from office, provision of 
Confederate constitution concern- 
ing, 243. See also Spoils System. 

Rent troubles in New York, 161. 

Representatives, House of. See 
House of Representatives. 

Republican Convention of 1S96, the, 
declares against free silver, 318. 

Republican Convention of 1900, the, 
354 ; its three tasks, 354. 

Republican party, formation of, 188; 
nominates Fremont for presidency, 
191 ; declaration of principles, 191, 
192 ; strength of, in campaign of 
1856, 192, 193 ; effect of Dred 
Scott decision upon, 199 ; formi- 
dable gains of, in elections of 1858, 
201 ; puts Lincoln forward for Sen- 
ate, 201 ; repudiates Dred Scott 
decision, 206; nominates Lincoln 
for presidency, 207 ; carries the 
election of 1S60, 207, 208 ; compo- 
sition, temper, and purposes of, 
206-209 ; action of, i!;64, 236, 237 ; 
nominates_ Grant for presidency, 
271 ; reaction in, 1870-1876, 2S1 ; 
defeat of, in elections of 1874 and 



380 



Index. 



RES 

187s, 283 ; nominates Hayes for 
presidency, 283 ; wins contested 
election of 1876-1877, 285 ; recog- 
nized sponsor of new order of 
things, 291. 

Resumption Act of 1875, the, 315. 

Returning Boards, constitution and 
powers of, in South, 276 ; troubles 
caused by, in Louisiana and South 
Carolina, 1876, 284. 

Revenue, means taken to raise, by 
federal Congress, 1861, 220. 

Revolution, smallefEect of the Amer- 
ican, upon politics in the United 
States, 10; effect of the French, 
upon American politics, 13, 14; 
the European, of 1830, its intel- 
lectual effects, 108. 

Rhode Island, Dorr Rebellion in, 
161. 

Rice, exports of, 1829, 50 ; pro- 
duction of, in South in 1861, 
245. 

Richmond, Va., made the capital of 
the Confederate States, 219; ad- 
vance of McClellan upon, 224; 
advance of Grant upon, 234; 
taken, 237. 

" Riders," appropriations for inter- 
nal improvements by means of, 

39- . . , 

Riley, General, provisional governor 
of California, assists in constitu- 
tion makingj 168. 

Rio Grande river claimed as boun- 
dary of Texas, 149 ; operations 
upon, in Mexican war, 150. 

Riots, bread, of 1837, 93 ; in con- 
nection with Fugitive Slave Law, 
177 ; draft, in New York city, 
1863, 229. 

Rivers and Harbors Bill, the, 310. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, advances civil 
service reform, 321-322 ; calls the 
battle of Santiago a "captains' 
fight," 335 ; his mediation in 
Russo-Japanese war, 347 ; his atti- 
tude in the 6an Francisco school 
question, 348 ; removes all diplo- 
matic obstacles to building of 
Panama Canal, 349 ; propounds 
" big stick " policy, 351 ; policies 
of, 353—356; the infant terrible 
of Republican Party, 354; becomes 
president, 354 ; features of his 
administration, 355; his creed, 
355- 



SCO 

Root, Elihu, our present relations 
with our American neighbors due 
to, 349 ; his tour of South 
America, 352. 

Rosecrans, General, meets Van 
Dorn at Corinth, and Bragg at 
Murfreesboro, 231; defeated by 
Bragg at Chickamauga, 232. 

Rotary printing press invented, 
164. 

Rough Riders, the, 335 ; capture of 
San Juan Hill, 336. 

Russia, claims of, to Oregon, 148 ; 
sells Alaska to United States, 
272 ; position on Spanish-Ameri- 
can war, of, 344 ; expelled from 
Manchuria, 346. 

Rye, production of, in South, 1861, 
245. 

SAFETY Fund banking system 
of New York, 96. 

Sagasta, Senor, becomes Prime 
Minister of Spain, 330. 

*' Salary grab," 280. 

Samoa, exciting controversy over, 
325. 

Sampson, Captain, in the Spanish 
war, 333, 334. 

San Domingo, annexation of, de- 
sired by Grant, 278 ; receiver ap- 
pointed for the customs of, 352. 

San Francisco school question, 347— 
348. 

San Jacinto, battle of, 142. 

San Juan, 334. 

San Juan Hill, 335; capture by 
Rough Riders of, 336. 

Santa Anna, consolidates Mexican 
government, 142 ; defeated at San 
Jacinto, 142 ; supplants Paredes 
as head of Mexican government 
in 1846, 150; defeated by Taylor 
at Buena Vista, 152 ; aggressive 
movement of, in connection with 
boundary disputes, 1853, 189. 

Santiago, 332 ; invested by Shafter's 
army, 332 ; blockade of, 334 ; 
captured, 336. 

Santiago, the battle of, called by 
Roosevelt a " captains' fight," 

335- 

Savannah, Ga., occupied by Sher- 
man, 235. 

Schley, Commodore, in the Spanish 
war, 333, 334. 

Scott, General Winfield, becomes 



Index, 



381 



SCO 

commanding general in Mexican 
war and begins operations, 151; 
takes City of Mercico, 152 ; desires 
to have troops sent South in i860, 
245. 

Scott, Dred. See Dred Scott. 

Screw-propeller invented, 102. 

" Scrub race " for the presidency, 

17- 

Seceded States, status of, at close of 
Civil War, 255, 260 ; policy of Lin- 
coln towards, 256,257; reconstruc- 
tion of, by Johnson, 258, 259 ; re- 
construction of, by Congress, 266— 
269 ; excluded from congressional 
roll-call, 262, 267. 

Secession, early sentiments concern- 
ing, 46 ; logical difference between, 
and nullification, 47, 60 ; aboli- 
tionists favor, 165, 167 ; J. Q. 
Adams suggests, in connection 
with admission of Texas, 165 ; 
talk of, in South, autumn of 1849, 
168 ; effected by six southern 
States, 210; legal theory of, 211 ; 
first effects of, 213 ; primary object 
of, 215 ; character of movement 
for, 2x5, 240, 241 ; in the border 
States, 219; geographical area 
of, 1S61, 221, 222; methods of, 
240 ; feeling among the people 
in the South regarding, 240, 
241 ; principle of, undoubted in 
South, 241 ; first feeling in North 
with regard to, 242; opposition 
of minority to, in South, 250, 251. 

" Secondary boycott," the, 303. 

Secret sessions of confederate Con- 
gress, 250. 

Sections, the, political feelings of, in 
1828, 25; divergence between, on 
ground of tariff of 1828, 40; mu- 
tual misunderstanding between 
the, 177, 178; separation of, in the 
nationalization of the government, 

212. 

Sedition Law, 14. 

Seminole war, question of Jackson's 
conduct in, 53 , 54 ; end of last, 
100 ; connection of, with slavery 
question, 130. 

Senate, character it was meant to 
have, 12 ; fails to convict Johnson 
on impeachment trial, 271 ; suffers 
in popular estimation, 324; ratifies 
treaty of peace with Spain, 338. 

Sevier, John, 24. 



SLA 

Seward, William H., elected gover- 
nor of New York by the Whigs, 
loi ; speech of, on compromise of 
1850, 171 ; Taylor's confidential 
adviser, 171, 172 ; candidate for 
presidential nomination, i860, 206, 
207 ; desire of, for concessions to 
South in 1861, 214; appointed to 
Lincoln's cabinet, 217 ; is rebuked 
by Lincoln for extraordinary prop- 
ositions, 217, 218; treatment of 
southern commissioners by, 218; 
proclaims Thirteenth Amendment, 
260. 

Sewing machine, practicable, in- 
vented, 164. 

Seymour, Horatio, nominated by 
Democrats for presidency, 271. 

Shadrach, rescue of the negro, in 
Boston, 177. 

Shafter, General, invests Santiago, 
332, 334. 

Sheridan, General Phil., assists 
Grant against Lee, 1865, 237. 

Sherman, Anti-Trust Act, the, 303 ; 
failure of, 309 ; rescued from dis- 
use, 355. 

Sherman Purchase Act, 1890, the, 
316; repealed, 318. 

Sherman, General W. T., takes com- 
mand of western federal forces, 
234; drives Johnston back to At- 
lanta, takes Atlanta, defeats Hood, 
and makes march to and from the 
sea, 235 ; against Johnston in 
North Carolina, 236; Johnston 
surrenders to, 238; character of 
march of, to and from the sea, 
251. 

Sibonej', 334. 

Silver Bill, tlie Bland, 292. 

Silver Question, the, rise of, 315; 
equivocal attitude of the parties 
on, 317. 

Silver, Free, 309; Republican con- 
vention of 1896 declares against, 
318; Democratic convention of 
i8g6 declares in favor of, 3 19. _ 

^^ Slaughter House Cases, '^ decided 
by Supreme Court, 275, 293, 324. 

Slavery, effect of, upon structure 
and character of society in the 
South, 105, 106; abolition of, in 
British empire, 108, 130; condi- 
tions favorable to agitation against, 
119; early feeling against, in 
South, 120; significance of ques- 



382 



Index, 



SLA 

tion of extinction of, 121, 322; 
establishment of, in South, 123, 
124; localization of, 124; agricul- 
tural disadvantages of, 127, 128; 
established by custom, recognized 
by statute, 129, 130; position of 
South with regard to, ia Territo- 
ries, 165, 166, 170, 171, 184; atti- 
tude ot Free Soi) party towards 
same question, 158, 159, 167, 171, 
179, 191, 192; attitude of Abolj- 
tioiiists towards, 165, 167; com- 
promise of 1S50 regarding, 169- 
173 ; struggle to establish, in 
Kansas, 185, 186; additions of 
territory open to, 1S9; non-inter- 
vention with, in Territories, ad- 
vocated by Democrats, 1856, 191 ; 
Dred Scott decision concejiiing, in 
the Territories, 198; position of 
Douglas regarding, in Territories, 
200, 201, 202; and the Lecompton 
constitution, 199, 200; split in 
Democratic party upon question 
of extension of, 205 ; declaration 
of Republicans regarding, i860, 
206 ; purposes of Republicans re- 
garding, i860, 208, 209; feeling of 
the South in i860, regarding 
charges concerning, 208, 209; 
sectionalization of Union because 
d, 212; sanction of, by confeder- 
ate constitution, 242 ; attitude of 
English spinners towards, 251. 

Slaves, conditions of life for, in 
South, 125-127; distribution of, 
at different periods, 124, 125; 
domestic, 125; "field hands," 
126 ; treatment of, 126, 127 ; 
sale of, 127; number of owners 
iAt 128, 129; rebellion of, under 
Nat Turner, 130; decision of 
Supreme Court, 1857, amcern- 
ing constitutional status of, 198; 
efforts of John Brown to liberate, 
m Kansas and Virginia, 203 ; pro- 
portion of, in South, in 1861, 244 ; 
service of, in southern armies, 
246, 247. 

Slave trade, agitation against, m 
District of Columbia during Van 
Buren's term, 100; agitation 
against interstate, 114; early ef- 
forts to check, 123, 124; view of 
domestic, in South, 127 ; abolished 
in District of Columbia by com- 
promise of 1850, 169, 170, 173; 



SOU 

non-interference with, between 
States, guaranteed by same com- 
promise, 169, 173 ; forbidden by 
confederate constitution, 243. 

Siidell, John, confedeiate commis- 
sioner to France, taken on the 
" Trent," 223. 

Sloat, Commodore, assists in seixure 
of California, 152. 

Smithson, James, provides exidow- 
ment for Smitlisonian institution, 
110. 

Society, characteristics of American, 
in 1829, 6, 7; effects of invention 
of labor-saving machinery upon 
structure of, 103, 104; structure 
and character of southern, 105— 
107; rise of new and more cem- 
plicated economic organization cf, 
289; unprepared!. ess of American 
people to deal with its problems, 
2S9; reasons fur this, 289. 

Soule, Pierre, takes part in framing 
"Ostend Manilesto," 189. 

South, The, early ascendency of 
propertied classes in, 13 ; reasons 
for support of Jackson by, 19, 25, 
39, 40; commercial interests of, 
and the tariff, 40, 49-51; sym- 
pathy of, with West, in regard to 
public land question, 42, 43; re- 
tains early views regarding the 
Constitution, 47 ; exports from, in 
1829, 50; views of, upon tariff leg- 
islation, 56-59; how affected by 
the industrial development of rest 
of country, 104; structure of so- 
ciety in, 105—107 ; slow growth of 
population m, 108; early feehng 
agarinst slavery in, 120 ; apprehen- 
sions cf, concerning anti-slavery 
agitation, 122; responsibility for 
establishment of slavery in, 123, 
124 ; cotton culture and slavery in, 
124, 125; conditions of slave life 
in, 125-127; economic and politi- 
cal effects of slavery upon, 127- 
129 ; agricultural waste in, under 
slavery, 127, 128; "poor whites" 
of, 128 ; size and influence of 
slave-owning class in, 128, 129; 
legal status of slavery in, 129, 130; 
avoidance of, by immigrants, 163; 
conventions in, to promote indus- 
trial development, 164; eagerness 
in, for further annexations of ter- 
ritory, 165, 188-190; demands of, 



Index. 






SOU 

with regard to slavery in the Ter- 
ritories, 165, 166, 170, 171, 184; 
demands a new Fugitive Slave 
Law, 176; misunderstands the 
North, 177; and repeal of Missouri 
Compromise, 184; movement from, 
into Kansas, 186; strength of 
Know Nothing party in, 1854, 
187 ; covets Cuba, 183 ; gains 
control of Democratic party, 199 ; 
feeling of, with regard to Jolin 
Brown's raid, 203, 204 ; will not 
vote for Douglas, 207 ; feeling in, 
with regard to election of i860, 
20S-210; undertakes secession, 
2to, 211 ; theory in doing so, 211 ; 
ieeling about coercing the, in 1861, 
214, 215, 219; eagerness of re- 
sponse of, to call for volunteers, 
219; importance of the cotton of 
the, to Europe, 222 ; purpose of 
Lincoln to turn opinion againft, 
by emancipation proclamation, 
227; spirit of the, in the civil war, 
239 ; old-time ideas in, with regard 
to sovereignty of conventions, 240 ; 
popular feeling in, with regard to 
secession, 240, 241 ; resources of, 
1861, 244, 245 ; population of, 
1861, 244; proportion of slaves in, 
1861, 244; products and manufac- 
tures of, 2 ^5 ; economic effect of 
blockade upon, 245 ; war supplies 
and men in, 1861—1865, 246; mili- 
tary conscription in, 246, 247 ; in- 
efficient means of transportation 
in, 248 ; anti-secession minority 
in, 250, 251 ; devastation and ex- 
haustion of, 251, 252; reconstruc- 
tion of state governments in, by 
Johnson, 258, 259; acts of state 
legislatures in, regarding the ne- 
groes, 260, 261 ; effects of same, 
263 ; reconstruction of state gov- 
ernments in, 266-269; divided into 
military districts, 267 ; shut out 
from presidential election of 1868, 
271 ; election troubles in, 1872- 
1876, 275-277; same cause con- 
tested election of 1876, 284,285; 
federal intervention in elections in, 
275, 276 ; economic resources of, 
freed for development, 287; the 
"undoing of reconstruction" in, 
292 ; negro vote substantially 
eliminated in, 293 ; downfall of 
Democratic party due to trans- 1 



SPA 

formation in, 294; interest in 
Cuba of, 32S. 

South America, extension of in- 
fluence of United States over, 
325- 

Southern constitutions, the new, 294. 

"Solid South," the, giving place to 
the New South, 294. 

Spain, war with, 328; its contrasts 
and contradictions, 328 ; President 
Cleveland defines attitude of the 
United States toward, 329; offers 
autonomy to Cuba, 330; growing 
irritation with United States, 330; 
endeavors to adjust difficulties 
with United States, 331; makes 
peace overtures to the United 
States, 336; United States ratifies 
treaty of peace with, 338. 

Spanish AmericanWar, the, 327, 332- 
338; declared, 332; peace terms, 
336-338. 

South Carolina, exports from, in 
1829, 50 ; protests against the 
tariff, 55-59 ; adopts nullification 
ordinance, 60 ; defiant towards 
Jackson's proclamations, 61, 62; 
suspends ordinance of nullifica- 
tion, 66 ; repeals same, 67 ; growth 
of population in, 1830-1840, 108; 
leads in secession movement, 2 10 ; 
sends commissioners to Washing- 
ton to arrange terms of separation, 
213; Sherman's march through, 
235j 251; election troubles in, 
1876, 284 ; federal support with- 
drawn by Hayes from Republican 
government in, 286; withdrawal of 
Federal troops from, 292. 

South Dakota created a State, 295. 

Southern confederacy. See Confed- 
erate States. 

Sovereignty, State, early acceptance 
of doctrine of, 45, 46 ; as ex- 
pounded in " South Carolina Ex- 
position," 57 ; as expounded in 
Calhoun's " Address," 58 ; explicit 
recognition of, in confederate con- 
stitution, 242. 

Sovereignty of the people, meaning 
of dogma under Jacksoiiian de- 
mocracy, 19-21 ; as applied to the 
Indian question, 37 ; Jacksonian 
theory of, 1832, 64. 

Spain, revolt of Mexican colonists 
from, 142 ; treaty between, and the 
United States, of 1819, 142, 148. 



884 



Index, 



SPE 

Specie circular, Jackson's, 91 ; Van 
Buren's, 93 ; effort to repeal Jack- 
son's, 94. 

Specie paymentSjAct for resumption 
of, 1875, 280. 

Speculation, caused by distribution 
of surplus, 88 ; results of, 89, 90 ; 
effect of, upon sale of public lands, 

Spinners, English, attitude of, to- 
wards slavery, 251. 

Spoils system of appointment to 
office, introduced, 9, 27 ; origina- 
tion of, in New York and Penn- 
sylvania, 20, 33 ; nationalized, 20, 
27; immediate application and ef- 
fects of, under Jackson, 30-32 ; 
responsibility for, 32, 33 ; original 
character of, 33 ; effects of, shown 
under Van Buren, 99 ; effects of, 
under Garfield, 321. 

Spoliation claims, French, 86; 
against other European powers, 
86. 

Spooner Amendment to Army Bill, 
the, 340. 

Spooner, Senator, 349. 

" Squatter sovereignty," doctrine 
of, adopted by Democrats, 156; 
adopted in Kansas-Nebraska leg- 
islation, 183, 1S4: ambiguity of 
Kansas-Nebraska bill with regard 
to exercise of, 1S5 ; doctrine of, 
negatived by Dred Scott decision, 
198 ; still maintained by Douglas 
and a portion of the Democrats, 
200-205. 

" Stand pat," defined, 292. 

Standpatism vs. Discontent, 354. 

Stanton, E. M., dismissed from office 
by Johnson, 270. 

State banks. See Banks. 

State elections, fluctuations in, 291. 

State legislation, brought under 
supervision of federal judiciary, 

324' 

" State Rights," early acceptance of 
doctrine of, 45, 46 ; nullification 
theory of, 57, 58 ; southern theory 
of, in 1S60, 211, 212. 

States, rapid creation of, between 
1812 and 1821, 5 ; nationalizing 
effect of the creation of new, 211 ; 

- provision of confederate constitu- 
tion touching admission of, 242 ; 
new, 29s ; govermental compe- 
tency of, 324. 



SUP 

Steam hammer, invention of Na- 

smyth's, 102. 

Steam navigation, its influence upon 
early growth of the country, 5 ; 
in decade 1830-1840, 102 ; on the 
ocean, 102. 

Steel, taxation of, 1861, 220. 

Stephens, Alexander H., chosen 
vice-president of the Confederacy, 
211 ; opposed to secession, 215. 

Stevens, Thaddeus, views of, re- 
garding status of seceded States, 
262. 

Stockton, Commodore Richard, as- 
sists in seizure of California, 152. 

Story, Mr. Justice Joseph, no. 

Stowe, Mrs. Harriet Beecher, pub- 
lishes " Uncle Tom's Cabin,'' 
1852, 181; estimate of "Uncle 
Tom's Cabin," 126, 127, 181, 

Strike, the, natural weapon of organ- 
ized labor, 291. 

Strikes, great, 301, 302, 303. 

Sub-Treasury. See Independent 
Treasury. 

Succession, presidential, legislation 
concerning, 322. 

Suffrage, early extension of, 15, 16; 
further extension of, in, 112, 118; 
confederate constitution forbids 
extension of, to unnaturalized per- 
sons, 243 ; provisions of Fourteenth 
Amendment concerning, 265 ; uni- 
versal, established in District of 
Columbia and Territories, 267; 
provisions of Fifteenth Amend- 
ment concerning, 269. 

Sugar Trust Case, the, 309. 

Sumner, Charles, enters Senate from 
Massachusetts as opponent o£ 
slavery extension, 184. 

Sumter, Fort, taken by confederates, 
218 ; effects of attack upon, 219. 

" Sun," the New York, established, 
III. 

Supplies, lack of, bv Southern ar- 
mies, 246 ; seizure of, in South, 
1863, 248. 

Supreme Court, purpose of its con- 
stitution, 12 ; ignored in respect of 
treatment of Georgia Indians, 337; 
on the constitutionality of second 
Bank of the United States, 71, 72 ; 
upon fugitive slave law of 1783, 
175, 176; decision of, in Dred 
Scott case, 198 ; decides case of 
Texas vs. Whitei 255, 274; re- 



Index. 



385 



SUR 

calls the country to a normal in- 
terpretation of the Constitution, 
274)275; d&Q\Ae% Slaughter House 
Cases, 275 ; decisions of, in legal 
tender cases, 280, 281 ; members 
of, on Electoral Commission of 
1876, 285, 286 ; its crucial decis- 
ions regarding railroading, 306 ; 
decision in Sugar Trust Case, 309 ; 
opinion of State legislation, 324 ; 
its decision in case of Downes vs. 
Bidwell, 338. 
Surplus, distribution of, 1833-1836, 
86-88 ; effects of distribution of, 
89, 90, 310. 

TAFT, William H., first civil gov- 
ernor of Philippines, 340; in 
China, 348. 

Taku, 346. 

Tampa, 335 ; unfortunate selection 
of, 335- 

Taney, Roger B., made Secretary 
of Treasury, assents to removal 
of deposits, 81 ; Democratic 
leader, 112. 

Tanner, Corporal, 312. 

Tariff, effect of, upon the South, 
1828, 49, 42 ; legislatiottj 1816- 
1828, 48, 49 ; character of that of 
1828, 48, 49; effects of, upon the 
South, 1816-1829, 49; constitu- 
tionality of, 51; South Carolina's 
protests against, 55-59 ; South 
Carolina theory of suspension of, 
57; Act of 1832, 58, 59: "Force 
Bill " to sustain, 65 ; Verplanck 
bill, 1832, 65 ; Clay's compromise 
bill of 1833, 65, 66; Act of 1S33 
prevents reduction of surplus, 87 ; 
Acts of 1841-1842, 139, 140; of 
1846, 154; Act of 1S57, 196, 197; 
legislation of 1861, 214; of 1862, 
220 ; of 1864, 232 ; protective, ex- 
plicitly forbidden by confederate 
constitution, 242 ; reduction of, 
becomes a leading question, 309 ; 
commission appointed to inquire 
into, 310; Cleveland's message 
concerning, 1887, 311. 

Tariff Commission, the, provided for, 
310. 

Tariff Question, the, 309-314 ; made 
an issue by President Cleveland, 
311 ; made a party issue, 312. 

Tariff, protective, dates from Civil 
War, 309; early years of, 310. 



TER 

Taxation, system of, adopted by 
federal Congress, 1861-1S62, 220, 
221; increased direct, 1864, 232; 
of state bank issues, 233 ; by car- 
pet-bag governments in South, 
268, 269. 

Taylor, General Zachary, sent by 
Polk to Mexican border, 149; or- 
dered to advance, 150; wins bat- 
tles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la 
Palma, 150 ; nominated for presi- 
dency, 157; elected, 159; policy 
of, as President, with regard to 
California and New Mexico, 167, 
168; utterance of, with regard to 
resistance of federal power, 172 ; 
death of, 172. 

Telegraph, electric, invention of, 
162. 

Tennessee, feeling in, concerning 
Louisiana purchase, 35 ; feeling in, 
with regard to the coercion of se- 
ceded States, 215 ; secedes, 219; 
becomes theatre of civil war, 231, 
232 ; new jjovernment in, recog- 
nized by Lmcoln, 1864, 257; rep- 
resented by Andrew Johnson in 
Senate, 257, 258 ; re-admitted 
to representation in Congress, 
265. 

Tennessee River, movements of 
Grant upon, 223, 224. 

Tenure of Office, Act of 1820, 27; 
Act of 1867, 267; latter ignored 
by Johnson, 270; Act of 1867 
repealed, 322. 

Ten Years War, the, 329. 

Territories, question of extension 
of slavery into, occasions anti- 
slavery movement, 121, 122, 130; 
interest of southern leaders in ex- 
tension of slavery into, 122, 130; 
slavery in, as affected by Ordi- 
nance of 1787 and Missouri Com- 
promise, 131, 132; demands of the 
South with regard to slavery in, 
165, 166, 170, 171, 184; position 
of Free Sellers on same question, 
158, 159,167, 171, 179, 191, 192; 
compromise of 1850 regarding slav- 
ery in the, 169-173 ; non-inter- 
ference with slavery in, advocated 
by Democrats, 191 ; Dred Scott 
decision regarding slavery in, i^S ; 
position of Douglas regarding 
same, 200, 201, 202 ; South de- 
mands practical application of de- 



25 



386 



Index, 



TEX 

cision, 204, 205 ; decision splits 
Democratic party, 205 ; decision 
repudiated by Republicans, 208; 
willingness of Seward to make 
concessions regarding slavery in, 
i86x, 214: provision of confede- 
rate constitution touching slavery 
in, 242; establishment of univer- 
sal suffrage in, by Congress, 267. 

Texas, overtures of, declined by Van 
Buren, 100; free soil question in 
connection with admission of, 130, 
131; becomes independent State, 
141, 142 ; claimed as part of Lou- 
isiana purchase, 142 ; part of 
Mexico, 142 ; independence of, 
recognized, 143; first steps to- 
wards annexation, 143—145 ; " re- 
annexation " of, proposed by 
Democrats, 146 ; question of ad- 
mission of, decides election of 1844, 
147 ; admitted by joint resolution, 
147 ; dispute as to boundaries of, 
149 ; becomes a State, 149 : uii- 
settled northern boundaries of, 153; 
claims of, upon New Mexico, 153, 
172; claims purchased under com- 
promise of 1850, 170, 273 ; secedes, 
210; cut oflt from rest of Confed- 
eracy, 1 86 1, 231 ; does not act on 
Thirteenth Amendment, 260; re- 
construction of, delayed, 260, 270. 

Texas vs. White, case of, decided 
by Supreme Court, 255, 274. 

Thomas, General, against Bragg at 
Chickamauga, 232 ; against Hood 
at Nashville, 235. 

Thompson, Jacob, of Mississippi, in 
Buchanan's cabinet, 199. 

"Thorough," policy of, adopted by 
Congress in reconstructing south- 
ern States, 262, 267. 

"Tidal wave" of 1874, 2S3. 

Tientsin, 346. 

Tilden, Samuel J., nominated by 
Democrats for presidency, 283. 

Tithes, commutation of, in England, 
109. 

Tobacco, exports of, 1829, 50; pro- 
duction of, in South, 1861, 245. 

Tocqueville, Marquis de, visits the 
United States, 109. 

Topeka, constitution framed by 
Kansas free settlers at, 186. 

Treasury notes, issue of, under Van 
Buren, 97. 

Treaty, the Ashburton, 140; defeat 



UNI 

of first, for annexation of Texas, 
145 ; touching Oregon boundaries, 
concluded with England, 148 ; of 
Guadalupe Hidalgo, 152 ; Clay- 
ton-Bulwer, 174; of Washington, 
with England, 278. 

" ' Trent ' affair," 222. 

Troops, federal, intervention of, in 
southern elections, in 1872, 276 ; 
in 1876, 284 ; withdrawn from 
South by Hayes, 286. 

Trust problem, the, 308. 

"Trusts," formation of, 295. 

Turner, Nat, negro outbreak under, 
130. 

Tutuila, transference to United 
States, 325. 

Tyler, John, elected Vice-President, 
101 ; principles and election of, 
as Vice-President, 135; succeeds 
Harrison, 135 ; character and 
course of, as President, 136 ; bank 
vetoes of, 138, 139 ; discarded by 
Whigs, 139 ; negotiates treaty for 
annexation of Texas, 134. 

UNCLE Tom's Cabin," pub- 
lished, 181 ; how far a true 
picture, 126, 127, 181. 

"Undoing of Reconstruction," the, 
292. 

Union Pacific Railway, chartered 
and granted lands by Congress, 
221 ; Credit Mobilier scandals in 
connection with construction of, 
279. 

United States, claims of, to Oregon 
country, 148 ; commercial isolation 
during Civil War of, 290 ; reasons 
for this, 290 ; foreign relations of, 
325— 327 ; transference of Tutuila to, 
325 ; extension of influence over 
Central and South America, 325, 
dispute between Chile and, 325 ; 
dispute with Great Britain over 
Bering Sea, 325 ; as a world power, 
328—357; intervention in Cuba, 
328 ; steps leading to this, 328 ; 
relative position of Cuba to, 328 ; 
past attitude toward Cuba of, 329; 
President Cleveland defines atti- 
tude toward Spain of, 329 ; grow- 
ing irritation with Spain, 330; 
Spain endeavors to adjust diffi- 
culties with, 331 ; declares Cuba 
free and independent, 332 ; agrees 
to purchase the Philippines, 337 ; 



Index, 



387 



UNI 

the new dependencies of, 338 ; its 
trusteeship in Cuba, 342 ; makes 
treaty with Cuba, 343 ; in the 
Orient, 344-349; attitude of the 
powers at outset ol Spanish- 
American war, toward, 344 \ its 
championship of the integrity of 
China, 345 ; relations with Japan 
since igoo, 346—348; recent re- 
lations with China of, 348-349; 
the Panama Canal, 349, 350 ; recog- 
nizes Panama as independent re- 
?ublic, 350; makes treaty with 
'anama, 350; and Latin America, 
351^353 ; international arbitration, 
353 ; after eighty years, 356-357- 

United States Bank. See Bank of 
the United States. 

United States Steel Corporation, the, 
formation of, 309. 

United States of Colombia, the, and 
the Panama Canal, 349. 

Universal Suffrage, See Suflfrage. 

Utah, attempt of Mormons to or- 
ganize, as Territory under name of 
" Deseret," 168; given a territo- 
rial organization, 170; becomes a 
State, 295 ; its admission marked 
solution of unique problem, 295. 

VAGRANCY laws adopted in 
South for control of negroes, 
1S65-1866, 26 r. 
Van Buren, Martin, Secretary of 
State under Jackson, 28 ; utter- 
ance with regard to removals from 
office, 31 ; connection with Albany 
Regency and spoils system, 33, 
99: withdraws from Jackson's 
cabinet, 55 ; nominated for vice- 
presidency, 1832, 63 ; guides Jack- 
son in diplomatic transactions, 84 ; 
elected President, 91, 92; fiscal 
policy of, 93, 94; sympathy of, 
with "Loco-foco" principles, 96; 
share of, in banking reform in New 
York, 96 ; unpopularity of, 98, 
100 ; declines overtures of Texas, 
100 ; accommodates boundary dis- 
putes with England, 100; relations 
of, to Democratic party, 112; po- 
litical character of period of, 117; 
defeated for Democratic nomina- 
tion of 1844, 14s; nominated by 
Barnburners and Free Soilers, 
1848, 158; supported by Liberty 
party, 159. 



VOT 

Van Dom, General, confederate 
commander, movement of, upon 
Corinth, 231. 

Venezuela, President Cleveland's 
action regarding, 326; and Ger- 
many, 351. 

Vera Cruz taken by Scott, 151. 

Vermont carried by the Anti-masons, 
64. 

Verplanck, Gulian C, tariff bill of, 
65. 

Veto, Jackson's bank, 79; Tyler's 
bank, 138, 139; Johnson's recon- 
struction vetoes, 264, 265. 

Vice-president, the, succeeds for 
the first time to presidency, 135; 
again becomes Prebident, 173 ; 
becomes President, in 1881, 289. 

Vicksburg, Miss., taken by Grant, 
1863, 230. 

Virginia, intervenes in nullification 
troubles, 66 ; growth of popula- 
tion in, 1830-1840, 108 ; proposes 
Peace Congress, 214; feeling in, 
with regard to coercion of the 
seceded States, 215; secedes, 219; 
campaigns in western, 221; chief 
theatre of the war, 223 (see names 
of tke various battles /ought z« 
Virginia^ \ divided by Congress, 
228; "Alexandria government" 
in, recognized, 255, 256; attempt 
to reconstruct government of, 
1864-1865, 258; difficulties of re- 
construction in, 269 ; acceptance 
of Fifteenth Amendment made 
condition of re-admission of, to 
representation, 269. 

"Virginia," the, armored confeder- 
ate ram, in Hampton Roads, 229. 

Virginia Resolutions of 1798-9, 14; 
basis of Hayne's argument, 1830, 
43 ; not at first regarded as trea- 
sonable, 45; reiterated, 66; for- 
mally adopted by Democratic 

party, 178, 179- , ^. , 

Volunteers, called out by Linco'n, 
1861, 218; attack upon Massachu- 
setts regiment of, in Baltimore, 
218 ; called out by Davis, 219 ; by 
Congress, 220. 
Vote, popular, for presidential elec- 
tors in 1824, 18; in 1828, 20; in 
1832, 92; in 1836, 92; in 1840, 
loi ; in 1848, 159; of 1852, 179; 
of 1856, 192; of i860, 207, 208; 
in 1868, 272 ; of 1872, 282. 



388 



Index, 



WAB 

WABASH case, the, 324. 
Wabash decision, the, 306. 

Wade, Benjamin F., enters Senate 
from Ohio, 184. 

Wallace, General Lew, defeated by 
Early, 234, 235. 

War of 1812, feeling of New Eng- 
land about, 46. 

War, the civil, beginning of, 218; 
first battle of Manassas and the 
"'Trent' affair," 221; operations 
of 1862, 223-226; operations upon 
the coast, 1S61-1862, 229 ; opera- 
tions of 1863,230-232; military op- 
erations of 1S65, 233-236 ; closing 
events of, 237, 238; expenditure 
of life and property in, 252. See 
also navies of principal battles. 

" War Democrats," 281. 

War Department, arbitrary power 
of, during civil war, 254 ; ineffi- 
ciency dunng Spanish War, of, 335. 

Washington, city threatened by 
Jackson, 225 ; by Early, 235. 

Washington, George, character of 
the government under, 10, 13 ; 
temporary unpopularity of, 13, 14; 
takes opinion of Hamilton and 
Jefferson on constitutionality of a 
national bank, 71. 

Washington, State of, created, 295. 

Webster, Daniel, preserves the 
older traditions of public life, 1 1 ; 
on the spoils system, 30, 31; in 
the debate on Foot's resolutions, 
44; validity of his argument, 44- 
47; Secretary of State under Har- 
rison and Tyler, 137, 139; negoti- 
ates Ashburton treaty, 140; retires 
from Tyler's cabinet, 141 ; atti- 
tude of, towards compromise of 
1850, 170, 175 ; Secretary of State 
under Fillmore, 173; death of, 
179 ; utters prophecy in 1S30, 242. 

West, the, effect of development of, 
on politics, 15, 16, 24-26; sym- 
pathy of, with South, in public 
land question, 42, 43 ; differen- 
tiated from South by industrial 
development, 104 ; the make- 
weight in the nationalization of 
the government, 212. 

West Indies, Jackson secures trade 
with, 85 ; example of abolition of 
slavery in, 130; release of muti- 
nous slaves in ports of, 140; war 
operatious in, 333. 



WIL 

West Virginia, creation of, by Con- 
gress, 22S ; inconsistency of Con- 
gress regarding, 255, 256; provi- 
sion for gradual emancipation in, 
259 ; labor legislation in, 301. 

Weyler, General, issues famous re- 
concentration order, 329. 

Wheat, production of, in South, in 
i86i, 245. 

Wheaton, Henry, publishes " Ele- 
ments of International Law," 110. 

Whig party, developed from Na- 
tional Republican party, 16 ; 
growth of, during Van Buren's 
administration, 101 ; nominates 
W. H. Harrison for presidency, 
loi ; so called after 1S34, 113; 
its principles, 113, 114; campaign 
methods of, 1840, 118; transfor- 
mation and programme of, 1841, 
i33> 134; significance of success 
of, in 1840, 133 ; chooses Tyler for 
vice-president, 135; repeal of In- 
dependent Treasury Act by, 137 ; 
defeated by Tyler m its purpose 
to establish a national bank, 137, 
13S; losses of, in 1841 and 1842, 
144; platform of, in 1844, 146 ', 
wins congressional elections of 
1846, 155; nominates Taylor and 
lillmore, 157; wins presidential 
election, 1848, 159; non-committal 
policy of, 1848, 157; protest of 
northern, against annexation of 
Texas, 165 ; nominates General 
Winfield Scott for presidency, 
178; defections from, in 1852, 
179; disintegration of, 187; end 
of, 192, 193. 

Whiskey Rebellion in western Penn- 
sylvania, political significance of, 
46. 

Whiskey Ring, under Grant's ad- 
ministration, 278. 

Whitney, Eli, invents cotton-gin, 
124. 

Whittier, John G., 109, 110. 

" Wilderness," battles in the, 234. 

Williamsburg, Va., battle of, 1862, 
225. 

Wilmington, N. C, taken by federal 
forces, 236. 

Wilmot Proviso, with regard to 
slavery in Mexican cession, in- 
troduced, 153 ; political effect 
of introduction of, 153, 154; 
arguments for, 155 ; defeated, 



Index. 



389 



WIL 

156; action of State legislatures 
concerning, 165, 166; Nashville 
convention touching the, 172 ; 
language of, copied in Thirteenth 
Amendment, 259. 

Wilson Uili, the, 313. 

Wilson, Henry, Vice-President, 
name of, connected with Crs^dit 
Mobilier transactions, 279. 

Wirt, William, nominated for presi- 
dency by Anti-masons, 63. 

Wisconsin admitted, 1S48, 162. 

Wood, General Leonard, at San 
Juan Hill, 3:^6; in Cuba, 342. 

Woodbury, Levi, in Jackson's cabi- 
net, 55; enters Senate, 76; hos- 
tility of, to Bank of United States, 
76; Democratic leader, 112. 



ZUL 

Woodford, General, 331. 

Wool, significance of duties on, for 
South, 1829, 50. 

Wright, Silas, spokesman for Van 
Buren and the "hard money" 
party in Coni;ress, 94 ; sympathy 
of, with " Loco-i<x;() " principleSf 
96 ; Democratic leader, 112. 

Wyoming becomes a State, 295. 



YORKTOWN taken by Mc- 
Clellan, 225. 



'/^ULU Islands, the, 341. 



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SETTLED BY THE UNITED STATES 



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1819-1850. 

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SETTLED BY THE UNITED STATES 
1840-1850. 



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EPOCH M AP X\ 




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I 



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